b. 1979, Hartlepool, UK
Lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Rachel Lancaster's practice is focused on painting and its intersections with the languages of cinema, music and photography. Photographic stills from obscure 'B-movies' often from the 80s and 90s - the artists formative years - are selected, edited and then translated into oil paintings. Lancaster's paintings represent detailed fragments of a greater narrative. She is drawn to seemingly insignificant passing shots, extreme close ups of inanimate objects, common place domestic interiors; the split-second liminal moments that are in-between the action. Divorced physically from their position within a narrative structure, these paintings become temporally abstracted; ambiguous and open ended as to the unknown events which have preceded or may follow.
Lancaster completed her MFA in Fine Art at Newcastle University in 2011 and her BA in Fine Art at Northumbria University in 2001. Lancaster is the recipient of Ares Mosaic Art Prize, BEEP Painting Prize, and was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize. She was Artist-in-Residence at Alewive Brook Road in New York, the former residence and studio of Elaine De Kooning.
Lancaster’s work is in institutional collections including X Museum, Beijing, China, The Government Art Collection, UK and Middlesborough Institute for Modern Art, Middlesborough, UK. Her work is held in multiple private collections.