Donald Rodney

It is difficult to imagine the kind of artwork Donald Rodney would have made had he not suffered from sickle cell anemia. One of the founders of the PanAfrikan Connection, together with his flat mate Keith Piper, Rodney was a highly politicised and intelligent thinker who used his illness as a metaphor for what he perceived as the diseased nature of contemporary British society. From x-rays of his cells to tiny sculptures made from his skin, the artist created self-portraits of his life as a young black man. His friend Jeremy Akerman described Rodney as "fascinated by the way things live and rot". This is reflected in works such as The Land of Milk and Honey, in which he filled a glass vitrine with milk and copper coins that bled into one another, creating sickly green bile. - Jessica Lack, The Guardian, Wed 26 Nov 2008

I am in awe of the tenacity and ethos of British artist Donald Rodney. He turned his hospital bed into an art studio! He missed his father’s funeral because he was in hospital at the time and made this incredible little house out of his own skin. ‘In the house of my father’ is a photograph of a tiny house in the palm of Rodney’s hand. The skin that he used, was removed during one of the many operations he had in order to combat sickle cell anemia. I can identify with the hospital trips, constant pain and the feeling of being held back from reaching your potential, that Rodney struggled with. His friend Eddy Chambers wrote: ‘the house, a delicate, simple dwelling seemed to symbolise the fragility and the near-futility of Rodney having to live within a structure hopelessly unable to sustain itself or withstand even the smallest turbulence.’[1]

[1] Eddie Chambers, ‘My Catechism: The Art of Donald Rodney,’ in Third Text no.44, Autumn 1998, p. 353

No arms

My hands are not very strong and when I do a lot of writing, drawing, sewing or any physical work, they really ache and the finger joints tend to dislocate and swell up. This is incredibly frustrating when what I would like to do more than anything, is to create art. For this reason, I do not want to make any hands or arms on this sculpture. I feel trapped and frustrated by my EDS, helpless against it and held back by not being able to use my hands how I want to.