Against a background of living between cultures, Rabiya Nagi’s painting practice draws on personal and collective memory as she investigates how the past repeats itself. Nagi’s paintings operate as a form of mise-en-scène, where she interrogates the act of seeing and challenges our perception, constructing disconcerting visual stagings that invite the viewer to imagine new realities. These compositions, often unsettling, carry an uncanny sense of dislocation imbued with cinematic allusion. Drawing from the language of film, Nagi reimagines both reference photographs and her own work-specific imagery through the lens of the framed cinematic moving image. Her work is also informed by literature and art history, which she recontextualizes and reimagines through a contemporary lens, blurring the line between the real and imagined.
Predominantly a painter concerned with the figure, layering as a concept and form of expression becomes important as Nagi’s expanded painting practice explores other forms of expression on occasion which include moving image, text, and sculpture. Each is mediated through a strong sensation of colour and poetic uncertainties. Nagi has an intuitive and investigative approach to colour which plays an important part in her practice as she investigates the materiality of paint and the colour relationships across her art forms with a sense of the surreal rather than the real.
Education
· Central Saint Martins, (2021/23): MA Fine Art
· Royal College of Art (2020/21): Graduate Diploma
· Kensington and Chelsea College (2019/20): HNC
· University College London: Master of Laws (LLM)
Group Shows
2024 - ‘OFFPRINT’, Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, London SW1.
2024 - The Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, The Landmark Art Centre, Teddington.
2024 - ‘OFFPRINT’, Tate Modern, London SW1.
2024 - ‘Agents of Deterioration, Sideshow’, Lethaby Gallery, London N1.
2023 - ‘Mootookakio’ssin: Creating in Spacetime’, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Canada.
2023 - ‘Un(done)’, Hypha, Stratford, E20.
2023 - ‘Across and Over’ Royal College of Art, online.
2023 - ‘Ost’ - CSM, ‘Prisoners of Love’, Kopple City, EC2.
2023 - AN-X, ‘What We Thought We Knew’, Koppel Project Station, NW3.
2023 - Central Saint Martins graduation show.
2023 - The Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, Lauderdale House, Highgate, N6.
2023 - ‘Prisoners of Love: Affect, containment, and alternative futures’, Lethaby Gallery.
2023 - ‘Transparent Ritual’ Art Publications, Lethaby Gallery.
2022 - Annex Open Studios, CSM Archway Campus.
2022 - ‘MERCH’ Print Exhibition / Sale, Koppel X Gallery, Piccadilly Circus, W1.
2022 – ‘Without Space’ MFA Open Studios, CSM Archway Campus.
2022 - Rolls Building, London, EC4
2022 - Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, online.
2022 - ‘This is Not a Party’, MA Interim Show, Central St Martins, Trinity Buoy Wharf.
2021 - Rolls Building, London, EC4.
2021 - Shiftists, ‘Lingua Franker’, Hoxton 253, London, EC1.
2021 - Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, online.
2019 - Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition.
2019 - Collage Arts Open Studios, Cumberland Road, Woodgreen N22.
Awards
· High Commendation, Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, 2024.
· High Commendation, Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, 2023.
· Laura Devine Prize, best 3-D work, Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, 2021.
· Special Commendation, Law Society Art Group Annual Exhibition, 2019.
Residencies
· Residency, ‘Prisoners of Love’, OPENing, London EC2, August -September 2023.
Publications
· Artist Talk Magazine, 34/2024
· OFFPRINT, Tate Modern
· Across & Over, RCA X HSBC
· Lingua Franker
Upcoming Events
· AN-X, group show
· CHT group show, online.