Biography

Rose English emerged from the Conceptual art, dance and feminist scenes of 1970s Britain to become one of the most influential performance artists working today.

Rose English (b. 1950, Hereford, UK) has been writing, directing and performing her own work for over forty years in venues as various as Tate Britain, Royal Court, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Adelaide Festival and Lincoln Center, New York. Her productions feature a diversity of co-performers including musicians, dancers, circus performers, magicians and horses.

English's shows range from her site-specific performances and collaborations of the 1970s, including QuadrilleBerlin and Mounting, her acclaimed solos of the 1980s, including Plato’s Chair and The Beloved to her large-scale spectaculars of the 1990s, including Walks on WaterThe Double Wedding and Tantamount EsperanceHer internationally celebrated solo with a horse - My Mathematics - was produced by Michael Morris’s Cultural Industry and a series of vignettes with horses were presented by The Banff Centre, Canada and The Serpentine Gallery, London.

Her installation STORYBOARD, commissioned by National Glass Centre featured in Interloqui – a group exhibition at Caterina Tognon Arte Contemporanea to coincide with the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011. Other recent exhibitions include an installation composed of elements and documents relating to her 1975 performance, Quadrille, at Richard Saltoun and Karsten Schubert (London, 2013); Quadrille Karsten Schubert's 2013 Frieze Masters 'Spotlight' stand; The Eros of Understanding at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 2014 and A Premonition of the Act at Camden Art Centre, London 2015.

Her awards include the Time Out Performance Award, the Wingate Scholarship and the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists.

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