Rebecca Farkas

About

Artist's Statement

I investigate ideas of transformation, often using light and colour to explore found materials. By using photography and video to focus, the most mundane materials can reveal a hidden beauty. The spaces that we ignore and the things we push aside or throw away are often worth exploring further.

My work uses photography, video and installations: projecting images into spaces ensures that the viewer interacts with the work on a three-dimensional basis, and makes it an active, rather than a passive experience. The atmosphere of a space is often changed through projecting images into it, I often think of it as ‘painting’ a 3-D space with imagery. Installations are temporary, there one day and gone another, living on as a memory.

As a child my parents worked for the circus, moving between towns and educating my sister and I on the road. My dad was the ringmaster and I was, and am still, fascinated by the show itself, the feel of the place and the transformation inherent in that life.

My work is fed by those early experiences, without using them literally. It is where my obsession with the transformative effects of colour and light began and it also informs the search in my work for that extra element: a sense that the work you see has captured some part of you, even if only momentarily. I search for that undefined experiential moment.

CV

Qualifications & Awards

Winner of the Meadow Arts Prize 2010

Fine Art BA (Hons) - 1st Class, Hereford College of Arts, 2010

Commissions

Memento Mori – video projection installation for a young people’s live event, using animation to investigate ideas of mortality, material possessions and living life to the full, part of Create Fuel, an event commissioned by Herefordshire’s a Great Place/Rural Media.

Volka – site-specific installation in a rural church, as part of The Light, an exhibition of artists using light in their work.

Thereby Hangs a Tale – artist residency at Croft Castle & Parkland (National Trust) commissioned by Meadow Arts, resulting in site-specific projection into a neglected cellar space in the castle for Time Will Tell, group exhibition. Accompanied by public artist’s talk. (This piece was reconfigured at a much larger scale for In Another Light in 2014-15, at the request of National Trust and Meadow Arts.)

A Shrine to Our Precious Things – commissioned by Meadow Arts for In Another Light, group exhibition at Croft Castle & Parkland. An installation on two nights: members of the public joined in to create a ‘shrine’ at Croft Castle. This was accompanied by a website where people could contribute pictures and stories of personally ‘precious’ items that they owned.

Exhibitions

2019 Memento Mori II, single-channel digital installation, ESP Summer Camp, Eastside Projects

2019 Memento Mori, video projection installation, part of Create Fuel (commissioned by Herefordshire’s a Great Place/Rural Media)

2019 LIZDJ.UK online featured work Thereby Hangs a Tale (studio image)

2018 The Twelve Trees, installation, Blue Studio, Abergavenny

2017  Untitled, site-specific installation for The Happening, Rural Media/Invisible Arts Network, Hereford

2016 Unseen, site-specific installation, Hereford College of Arts

2015 Volka, site-specific installation, The Light, St Michael’s Church, Kingsland, Herefordshire

2015 Believe, video installation, Group Show, Hereford College of Arts

2014-15 A Shrine to Our Precious Things, live public event & online artwork; reconfigured Thereby Hangs a Tale large-scale                            outdoor installation, In Another outdoor installation for In Another Light, Croft Castle, Herefordshire (commissioned by Meadow Arts/National Trust)

2013 Artists’ Talk: Rebecca Farkas & Lexi Strauss at Worcester Museum & Art Gallery for PITT Projects

2013 Thereby Hangs a Tale, commissioned work for Meadow Arts/National Trust exhibition, Time Will Tell at Croft Castle, Hfds (including Artist’s Talk)

2013 Ludlow Open, video

2012-13 Artist in Residence, commissioned to make work for Meadow Arts exhibition Time Will Tell

2011 Spread Art, photographs, Art 360 (for h.Art 2011)

2010 Herefordshire Open Exhibition, video

2010 h.Art, photographs, The Print Shed

2010 Summer Show, installation, Hereford College of Arts (graduate show)

2009 Summer Show, installation, Hereford College of Arts (group show)

2008 The Pen, artist’s print, Material, Ludlow

2008 Open Studios, photographs, video, installation, Hereford College of Arts

2007 h.Art, Frame Up, photographs, Hereford

2007 All Saints Church, photographs, Hereford

2007 Summer Show, artist’s print, Hereford College of Arts

Image credit: Thereby Hangs a Tale (2015), Meadow Arts commission for In Another Light at National Trust's Croft Castle & Parkland. Photo Stefan Handy.