Nigel Rolfe (born 1950) is an English-born

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist and

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

ist based in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. He is a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...

, an elite association of Irish artists.

Biography

Rolfe was born on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

in 1950. He studied at the

Farnham School of Art Farnham is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the county border with Hampshire. The town is on the north branch of the River Wey, a tributary of the Thame ...

and Bath Academy of Art.

Career

Rolfe moved to Ireland in 1974, working at the

Project Arts Centre Project Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary arts centre based in Temple Bar, Dublin, which hosts visual arts, theatre, dance, music, and performance. History Project Arts Centre was founded by Jim FitzGerald and Colm O'Briain in 1967 after a th ...

. In the late 1970s, Rolfe became active in

. According to the

Irish Museum of Modern Art The Irish Museum of Modern Art (), also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. It is located in Kilmainham, Dublin. History Irish art collector Gordon Lam ...

, his work "encompasses installation, drawing, photography, video and audio media, and examines the influence of history on the individual and society." In the 1980s–90s he worked with the group

Black Market International Black Market International (BMI) is a performance artist collective with international members, each with an established and independent practice as a solo performer. Since 1985 the group has presented durational collective performances worldwide. ...

. In the 1980s, his work was mostly about

The Troubles The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...

. In 1984, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' said, "He is a performance sculptor, whose speciality is creating ground paintings and hanging

shroud Shroud usually refers to an item, such as a cloth, that covers or protects some other object. The term is most often used in reference to ''burial sheets'', mound shroud, grave clothes, winding-cloths or winding-sheets, such as the Jewish '' ...

s out of natural materials, such as

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

and

soot Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. Soot is considered a hazardous substance with carcinogenic properties. Most broadly, the term includes all the particulate matter produced b ...

, and rolling his naked body in them until he has erased his creation or transferred it to himself." In 1990, his work "Hand On Face" was shown at Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa. In 1991 he received funding from the American

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

. In 1989, he wrote a song for

Christy Moore Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore (born 7 May 1945) is an Irish folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was one of the founding members of the bands Planxty and Moving Hearts and has had significant success as a solo artist. His first albu ...

, "Middle of the Island," inspired by the death of

Ann Lovett Ann Rose Lovett (6 April 1968 – 31 January 1984) was a 15-year-old schoolgirl from Granard, County Longford,''Dictionary of Irish Biography'' (''D.I.B.''): Lovett, Ann. https://www.dib.ie/biography/lovett-ann-a10324 Ireland, who died giving b ...

. In 1994, he worked with Moore, writing a song, "Tiles and Slabs," inspired by Brendan O'Donnell, a triple murderer from

County Clare County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...

. Rolfe received a

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

at IMMA in 1994 and at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris in 1996. In 2000, he was elected to

. As a performance artist, he cites

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...

Pina Bausch Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylised blend of dance move ...

and

Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limit ...

as inspirations. Rolfe has taught at the

Royal College of Art, London The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

, Chelsea School of Art and Design and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

Personal life

Rolfe lives in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. His wife, Angela, is an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rolfe, nigel 1950 births Living people Irish performance artists 20th-century Irish artists 21st-century Irish artists Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts Alumni of Bath School of Art and Design Aosdána members Artists from Dublin (city) Irish installation artists Artists from the Isle of Wight Irish video artists