Rose Finn-Kelcey

Rose Finn-Kelcey was born in Northampton. She studied at Ravensbourne College of Art, and at Chelsea School of Art, London.

The hallmark of Rose Finn-Kelcey is unpredictability. Coming to prominence in the 1970s as a performance artist she aimed to involve spectators with great subtlety and wit, and like other conceptual artists at the time, she worked with ideas rather than making pieces that fitted comfortably into the commercial sector.

Early milestone installations included a series of flag pieces that carried messages: works such as Here is a Gale Warning at Alexandra Palace 1970 and Power for the People 1972 at Battersea and Bankside Power Stations, London. Bureau de Change 1987 was another key work, in which Finn-Kelcey replicated one of Vincent van Gogh's sunflower paintings with hundreds of coins. The broad scope of Finn-Kelcey's endeavour is apparent in a long list of work that demonstrates her international reputation, with installations, exhibitions and performances across Europe, in Australia, America, Mexico and Korea. Her messages are oblique and thought-provoking, and can be disarmingly witty. She uses all manner of materials in works that surprise and shock, but so cannily that the viewer is often taken completely by surprise. The beauty of installations such as The Royal Box, a refrigerated room shown at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, and the contrasting Steam Installation at Chisenhale Gallery, London, both of 1992, have also a sinister dimension. Such contrasts between and within her works are constant factors. A recent piece, Dead, shown in a mixed exhibition at The Roundhouse, London, 2001, is entitled Return to Sender. In Contemporary Art Magazine, April 2001, Hugh Stoddart wrote of the figure contained within a large envelope ready to be licked and stuck down, 'In small LED lettering, the message "I'm so happy to be dead" flickers repeatedly across the shades covering the dead being's eyes. Wit sharp enough to cut your wrists on.'

Rose Finn-Kelcey lives and works in London.