This career changing award would allow me to spend dedicated time on developing work for a solo exhibition. I am a mother of two young boys and I have continued to make work in every way that I can throughout the last five years, I have recently moved into a long term studio that allows for larger scale, more ambitious projects. I feel set up and excited to commit to an all encompassing and dedicated project.
There are three specific areas that I would be excited to focus on given financial support:
The first is to train in traditional figurative sculpture and learn classical techniques. I am interested in anchoring the foundations of my making in one of the earliest modes of sculpture. I believe that this skill set would be an effective and ambitious addition to my practice and would provide me with the freedom to incorporate the figure into my work in new ways, expanding my range with form and scale.
The second is that I would love to experiment with lighting in my practice, my current work is concerned with domesticity and everyday routine. My experience of being a mother has been a nocturnal one and I am interested in playing with sculptures that sit in both daylight and darkness. I am compelled to try out spotlights, bulbs and nightlights in my work.
Thirdly, I am interested in researching magic realism to develop a series of surreal sculptural scenes that reference domestic life. I have long been inspired by the magic realist writers Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I love how, in their novels, the supernatural or extraordinary is woven seamlessly into everyday life. For example, in 100 Years of Solitude, Remedios the Beauty is hanging bed sheets when she unexpectedly, and without resistance, floats away; in another scene, a sticky amber substance seeps up through the floor tiles and spreads throughout the house. I am interested in further investigating the role that domestic objects (such as bedsheets, tiles or appliances) can play in providing the ‘real’ to the surreal.
I am keen to make work in response to the history of Darlington as a bleaching destination. I was fascinated to learn that the waters of the Tees and the Skerne were known for their excellent bleaching properties and items from as faraway as Scotland were brought to be bleached. I would be interested to learn more about this bleaching process through the Darlington library’s local archives. I would love to research the evolution of stain removing and the societal expectations of women to run clean, stain free homes. I would be interested to look at the invention of household bleach in the late 18th century and research how the introduction of this cleaning product would have affected women and their roles within the home, locally to Darlington and beyond. I am really excited by the prospect of investigating the history of stain removal in relation to women’s household work and domesticity. The process of stain making and stain removal will present some really intriguing material opportunities. It would be wonderful to immerse myself in the history of the town, to experiment using the local waters as a material and to have the opportunity to exhibit the work in Darlington.
I am happiest when playing with the potential of materials and I embrace a maximalist approach to assembling and combining these experiments with readymade objects. I use text and writing as a surface, notebooks or clay letters make up barely legible layers in my work and I touch on the presence of a body, from literal suggestions to imprints, photographs or belongings. The cyclical use of material and the reincarnation of work is important to me, I grind down and recycle elements of past work to use as aggregate that makes up details of future work; rubbled remnants move through my practice as it evolves. So far this year, I have been working on a series of sculptures that erupt out of toasters. After giving birth, it is standard practice in hospital to be offered toast; so my new life, and that of many other mothers, began with a slice of toast. I recently exhibited these works in a group show titled ‘Sorry about the Mess’ curated by Babe Station and supported by Bow Arts in London. Following the exhibition I was thrilled to be shortlisted for the 2025 Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, alongside seven sculptors, out of 280 applicants. Selected solo exhibitions include, ‘What the Water Gave Me’ at Quench Gallery, Margate, 2021 and ‘Tidy’ at Sothu Projects, Zurich, 2019. Duo exhibitions include ‘Housekeeping I’ at Garden Projects, Los Angeles, 2018, ‘Notes on Growth’ at Mo.Ca, Brescia, Italy, 2019 and ‘Housekeeping II’ at Berkeley House, Margate, 2025. Group exhibitions include Berntson Bhattarcharjee and Cooke Latham Gallery in London.
I studied my BA in Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Art from 2010-2013 and my degree show piece was nominated for the Platform Prize at Modern Art Oxford in 2013. I studied my MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art from 2015- 2017, I received a distinction for my dissertation titled ‘Sticking up for Soft’, which explored softness in all its varied forms in relation to sculpture.
N/AI curate a programme of exhibitions and dinner events titled The Amber Room. I started The Amber Room in 2018 after graduating from the RCA because I wanted to create a model for bringing together an array of vibrant, UK based, emerging practices, that was immersive and experience driven. I borrowed the title from The Amber Room, which is one of history’s most significant lost treasures, it went missing after WW2 from Catherine Palace near St Petersburg. I loved the idea of creating my own Amber Room, a treasure trove of work by brilliant artists that appeared in different formats and locations. I wanted people to spend more time with the work and to discuss it with one another, I thought a good way to make that happen was to invite them to dinner – so The Amber Room became an itinerant dining room installation and everything from the table linens, glassware and cutlery to the surrounding wall works and sculptures are made by artists and for sale. Since 2018 I have exhibited over seventy incredible artists at different locations across London including Matt’s Gallery, Cedric Bardawil, architect Alex Michaelis’ private home and 180 The Strand.
I spent a month in Brescia working towards an exhibition at Mo.Ca, a public cultural institution in the town centre. The exhibition was a part of Mecchanice della Meraviglia, a cultural event organised by the Municipality of Brescia city which initiates installations and site-specific artworks in different locations across the city. We were commissioned with a small budget, our exhibition was titled ‘Notes on Growth’ and took up three rooms in the beautiful 17th century cultural centre .
No, but recently Marcelle Joseph purchased a toaster sculpture of mine and I am really excited to have become part of her collection because she often curates exhibitions with public institutions for which she includes works from her collection.
In January 2025 I was a part of a small team that organised Off Season, a DIY weekend art festival in Margate, my partner Finbar Ward and I put on an exhibition titled ‘Housekeeping’ at our home and details of the event as well as images of our exhibition were featured in the May-June printed edition of Idler Magazine. In August 2024, I was interviewed by Huma Kabakci for her online platform the curious curator – https://humakabakci.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-rosie-reed-of
In 2019, I spent a month at Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy. Palazzo Monti is a renowned artist residency program, cultural centre, and exhibition space. It’s housed in a historic 13th-century palazzo and was founded in 2017 by Edoardo Monti, a collector and curator, who invited me to spend a month there, it was a really productive and inspiring time.
Email: rosanna.m.reed@gmail.com
Address: 31 Ethelbert Road, Margate, CT9 1SH, GB
Local Authority: Thanet District Council
