British Asian Visual Art Post Cool Britannia

British Asian Visual Art Post Cool Britannia is a research network that stems from Camberwell College of Arts (UAL) and explores the comparative invisibility of British South-Asian artists. The group was established from the result of anti-racism discussions between academics, artists, and students in the college’s painting studios.

The network investigates the diversity of practice of British South-Asian visual artists, academics, and curators, and emanates from local and national art schools and museums.

Their work facilitates public discussions, workshops and seminars with British South-Asian visual artists exploring the role and presence of their identities within their practice. They work intergenerationally, so that issues on race and identity is explored across 2nd and 3rd generation British Asian artists. The ‘artists voice’ is put first, welcoming differing narratives that challenge clichés whilst creating new dialogues.

This group is led by Raksha Patel with Daniel Sturgis.

Raksha Patel (b.1972, Leicester) studied MFA Painting at The Slade School of Art (1998).

Patel works as an artist, writer, socially engaged practitioner and lecturer. She worked for the Learning Department at Tate Britain (1999-2011); as an Artist in Residence at Whitechapel Gallery (2005). She is currently a Senior Lecturer on BA Painting at Camberwell College of Arts.

Her paintings focus upon British South-Asian diasporas and subsequent nuanced nature of identity seen through the built environment today. Her work stems from images found in archives (personal and public). These images are layered with the changing architectural landscape that is home to working-class communities drawing attention to cultural similarities and the less seen.

Daniel Sturgis (born 1966) is a British artist. He is professor of painting at the University of the Arts London. Sturgis’ meticulous abstract paintings combine formalism’s rigorous traditions of visual intellect and craftsmanship with a provocative, casual, and non-hierarchical aesthetic.

He is represented by Luca Tommasi gallery in Milan and was artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, USA (2016) and Chinati Foundation, Marfa Texas (2007). He had his first major solo show at Camden Arts Centre in 1997. Since then, he has shown extensively in Europe and the USA.