Rachel Louise Brown is fascinated by the way in which fantasy and myth are woven into reality, setting the language for how we feel, what we imagine and how we project ourselves as an image.

The Malevolent Eye is a culmination of the artist's response to unfamiliar places and strangers, a study into how the elements of subject, location and memory fuse together in creating an image. Through one process Brown shoots at night, alone... capturing the landscape whilst experiencing fear and uncertainty. An imagined gaze watches her alongside the real risk of being caught. It is whilst feeling this unease that a photograph is made; abstracted from reality, turning it into something 'other'. Brown then pushes the fictional narrative further by introducing characters into the 'non-scripted' story. The characters are cast through advertisements online and in local newspapers. People are invited to participate in return for a print of their image.

Most recently Brown has turned the lens up on herself... controlled completely by the camera, the location and the feeling of being watched by an unknown eye. The malevolence experienced whilst being both the subject and the image-maker has resulted in a series of self portraits entitled The Self as The Other.

‘At once an image maker and director, the artist becomes a kind of demiurge, wielding absolute power. This power is made all the more unsettling by how she creates a fictional world by giving a new twist to the one that already exists; elevating it to the level of the sublime by transforming it into an image, held between the boundaries of the imagination and within the realm of the dreamlike.’ - Christian Caujolle

Rachel Louise Brown graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2011 with a MA in Photography (Distinction), following a BA (Hons) in Photography at London College of Communication in 2008. She has exhibited widely, with shows in London, Liverpool, Copenhagen, Paris, Niort, New York, Dallas and Toronto, and has completed residencies in Paris, Niort and New York. In 2010 she was a UK winner of Magenta’s Flash Forward – Emerging Photographers award and Pour l’Instant Photography Prize.

In addition her work was recently part of the Boutographies photography festival in Montpellier (2013) and was also shortlisted for Visions of 21st Century Feminism and New Contemporaries (2010). Other selected awards include Applied Arts Magazine - Photographic Series in 2009, Fujifilm Distinctions in 2008, and honourable mentions in both the Fine Art and Deeper Perspective categories at the International Photography Awards, also in 2008. Brown was a visiting faculty member at the New York School of Visual Arts during its critical photography residency in 2011. Brown has been selected to be the artist in residence for Pinsent Masons during 2013 - 2014.

Collectors of Rachel Louise Brown’s work include Laura Skoler, trustee of the New Museum, New York.

Opus Fine Art
Sheep Street, Stow on the Wold
Gloucestershire GL54 1AA United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)14 51870827

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From 10am to 4pm