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Rana Begum

Rana Begum

THE lush rice fields of Sylhet in Bangladesh, where Rana Begum was born in 1977 and grew up as a little girl, still influences her work as an artist. “I definitely have good memories of growing up in Bangladesh, surrounded by green fields and water,” she tells GG2. “It comes out in my work – the vibrancy, the colour, the food.”

Repetition is another feature. “My love for repetition derives from my religious upbringing. I grew up reading the Qur’an and praying five times a day. The routine of prayer as well as the movements you do when you pray instilled this repetition that forever permeates through my work.” Colour has also been very important for her. “I grew up watching Bollywood movies and I absolutely loved their vibrancy.”


In 2013, she created a magical installation at the Dhaka Art Summit with 473 woven baskets, a throwback to her childhood. “While growing up I had a family friend who looked after me and she used to weave baskets. I wanted to incorporate that childhood memory so I thought why not create a structure with a basket formation.”

In 2020 she was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts which is very picky about who it lets in. And for the 2022 Summer Exhibition, she will be one of the committee helping to put together the show which has been an annual event since 1769. “It’s my first time,” she admits. “I’m very excited.”

The three distinctive elements in Begum’s art – light, colour and geometric patterns – were apparent in her 2022 exhibition at the Mead Gallery at the Warwick Arts Centre, aptly named Dappled Light.

In March 2022, Dappled Light moved to the Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery in London.

Begum came to the UK in 1985, aged eight. Begum is today “incredibly grateful” to her late father “for bringing me over to the UK, otherwise my life would have been very different. I would not able to have a career of any sort.”

The family settled in St Albans in Hertfordshire, and Begum “grew up on a street where there was a lot of racism but my dad never segregated us. I didn’t speak a word of English so when I started school it was really hard. My teacher gave me some colouring pencils and paper. Suddenly I had a way to communicate. I drew constantly and all of my pictures went up on the wall. It gave me such a positive connection with art from a young age.”

Begum went to an all girls’ school and “had quite a strict Muslim upbringing”. “It wasn’t easy trying to convince my parents to let me continue to do art. But thanks to the support of my headmistress and my uncle, they came around. They weren’t expecting me to actually make any kind of living from it. When I sold my degree show, my father was quite surprised,” she laughs.

She began a foundation course at the University of Hertfordshire in 1995, followed by a BA (Hons) and Master of Fines Arts from Chelsea College of Art and Design and Slade School of Fine Art respectively. In 2016 she won the Abraaj Group Art Prize, and was granted a $100,000 commission for a large-scale installation to be exhibited at the Art Dubai Fair the following year.

In 2020, she was nominated for election to the Royal Academy, which limits the number of academicians to 127. There appear to be only two other Asian academicians – the sculptors Sir Anish Kapoor and Dhruva Mistry. Like them, Begum can now put “RA” after her name.

It’s quite something that within two years, Begum has been invited to be a member of the committee that is helping the principal “coordinator” – sculptor Alison Wilding – put the Summer Exhibition together. Other committee members include Grayson Perry, Farshid Moussavi and Conrad Shawcross. The theme this year is “climate in all its manifestations”.

Begum has also recently contributed to the NHS 100 Rooms initiative. Begum, who now has her own studio in Stoke Newington in Hackney, was awarded Eastern Eye’s 2020 ACTA for the arts. It was presented to her for her installation during London Fashion Week at the Durbar Court at the Foreign Office. She draped the catwalk with a series of towering multi-coloured nets, evoking the fishermen’s nets of her childhood in Bangladesh.

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