Rhoda Webb
Rhoda Webb studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, and then worked as a model maker for the advertising and holographic industries. She went on to teach photography and 3D at Middlesex University for many years.
While living in London, she helped establish E7arts, a funded, community-led organisation for artists of all disciplines in London’s East End.
She has always exhibited, winning first prize in the Images of Brixton Competition in 1996, and was a finalist in the World Wide Fund for Nature's Search for a Sculpture Competition.
During the run-up to the London Olympics, Newham Council commissioned her to produce a photographic portrait of the borough and its people. She also worked on many large-scale public photographic art installations in and around Stratford, and took first prize at the London City Airport Annual Art Awards in 2008.
During her career, she has undertaken many community projects and residencies, most recently at a care home, creating an exhibition of work about memory.
One of her proudest achievements came in 2024, when one of her images was chosen for a memorial in Brixton commemorating Nelson Mandela’s visit there, which she had attended and photographed on that memorable day.
Artist Statement
My art explores our tenuous links with nature and the past, using sculpture and early photographic processes, sometimes combining both disciplines.
Recurring themes in my work, such as fragility, dreams, ghosts and our connection with the Earth, are important to me. I am especially drawn to materials that are delicate and breakable, such as filigreed plaster, wafer-thin ceramic, glass, paper and lead tissue, to express these ideas.
I enjoy researching and using photographic techniques dating back to the 1800s to make my images, installations and sculptures, such as silver gelatin painted on to glass and stone, and cyanotype printed on ceramic and fragile semi-opaque paper.
