Rachel Jones The Roberts Institute of Art Commission: Practising Performance

The Roberts Institute of Art's Practising Performance, a new commissioning programme to support artists who would like to engage with live performance, begins this year with artist Rachel Jones.

Rachel Jones has developed a deeply personal approach to painting and abstraction that is centred on an exploration of her identity, the material and chromatic qualities of oil paint and the evolving poetic and political languages of black identity across history. For Jones, music, sound and voice are fundamental to the development of her paintings and to her practice as an artist. These elements, and their related domains of silence, quiet and breath, will inform some aspects of Jones’ development of a new performance work.

Practising Performance invites visual artists who are interested in exploring performance to take part in a multidisciplinary research and development programme to create a new performance work. The Roberts Institute of Art team work closely with each invited artist to provide them with a support system, offering resources, contacts and opportunities to experiment with live work and find ways to present publicly the new work. Each Practising Performance commission presents the opportunity for an artist who has not worked with performance to do so without having to think about a fixed format or venue. Practising Performance is part of The Roberts Institute of Art’s new programming strategy to consider more sustainable and longer-term ways to support artists.