Donald Gladstone Rodney was a British artist. He was a leading figure in Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

's BLK Art Group

BLK Art Group

The BLK Art Group was the name chosen in 1982 by a group of four influential conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists based in the United Kingdom...

 of the 1980s and became recognised as "one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation." Rodney's work appropriated images from the mass media, art and popular culture to explore issues of racial identity and racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

.

Early life and career

Rodney was born and raised in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He completed a pre-degree course at Bournville School of Art and went on to complete an honours degree in Fine Art

Fine art

Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....

 at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

, graduating in the mid 1980s. There, he met Keith Piper

Keith Piper (artist)

Keith Piper is a British artist, curator, critic and academic. He was a founder member of the BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the West Midlands region of the UK. His work explores multi-media elements such as tape/slide, sound and video within an...

, also from Birmingham. Piper was to influence Rodney's work towards more political themes. The works of Rodney and Piper, alongside Eddie Chambers

Eddie Chambers

Edward "Eddie" Chambers is an American heavyweight boxer fighting out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Professional career:Eddie started boxing professionally in 2000 at the age of 18...

, Marlene Smith and Claudette Johnson became recognised as a distinct movement within British art, whose attachments were to social and political narratives.

Death

Rodney suffered from sickle-cell anaemia, a debilitating disease that grew steadily worse during his life. This led to an interest in discarded hospital X-rays and other medical themes that began to inform his work. Rodney used X-rays as a metaphor to represent the 'disease' of apartheid and racial discrimination in society.

In 1998, Rodney succumbed to the disease and died on March 4. After his death, Rodney’s work was shown in the prestigious British art show 5. He was also included in the show Give and Take, Works Presented to Museums by the Contemporary Art Society held at the Harris Museum and the Jerwood Gallery.

In 2003 Rodney's papers were donated to the Tate Archive.