The Artist
Rosalind Whitman studied at the Sheffield School of Art during the 1970's, and after gaining her Honours degree in sculpture, went on to become a student of printmaking under Bartolomeo Dos Santos at the Slade School of Art in London. Much of her work at the time drew on dreams and fairy-tales as source material.
After visiting Egypt for the first time in 1980, Rosalind developed a passionate interest in the Arab World. Islamic architecture and Middle Eastern imagery became a major inspiration for her work as an artist. She travelled extensively, making prolonged visits to Egypt and the Yemen where she produced the drawings and paintings that were to provide her with material for her studio work back in the UK.
In 1985 she founded the Rasama Press, the trade name under which she has since originated, editioned and marketed her etchings. Her paintings and prints feature in collections both in the UK and abroad.
Rosalind has participated in mixed and solo exhibitions in many London venues - notably at the Royal Academy, the Africa Centre, the Barbican Centre and the Royal Festival Hall - and has shown her work throughout the UK. She has also exhibited in Europe, the USA, Australia, and the Middle East.
She was sponsored to travel to Indonesia in 1994, where she worked on studies from the Hindu/Buddhist antiquities of Borobudur and Prambanan, in Java, and also from Hindu sculptures, shrines and dancers, in Bali. The paintings she created as a result, later featured in an international women's exhibition, in Mayfair, entitled 'Impressions of Indonesia'.
The increasing importance of figures in her hitherto mainly architectural settings preceded a thematic shift: re-reading Bronte's Wuthering Heights led her to begin her exploration of the very personal themes and dramatic episodes of the book. Over the past six years she has created a series of etchings inspired by the novel.
Rosalind is a member of the Printmaker's Council and East London Printmakers.
In 2000, she became a Millennium Fellow for her work as the co-ordinator of a mural project in East London.
She lives in London with her husband and daughter, and is a lecturer in Art and Design
at the London College of Fashion.