Biography
Arlene Wandera was born in Kenya and moved to the UK with her family before her teens. She holds a BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, London and is one half of the collaborative duo Duck & Rabbit Projects. Arlene’s work has been shown both nationally and internationally including at Venice Biennale, Dak’Art Biennale and 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair.
Many of her works are made using common, discarded or forgotten items and materials that are imprinted on our daily lives. To her, they represent nostalgia and the familiar, reflecting the sometimes challenging relationship between her Kenyan heritage and her life in the West, or as she describes it, the “in-between” area where she sits comfortably on a spiked fence. What drives Arlene’s process is the renewal of the forgotten and discarded, constantly pushing the boundaries of their own specifications and teetering on the edge. This intuitive approach creates a space for humour, play and unexpected results. The underlying themes and narratives in Arlene’s work are anchored in the complexities of social interactions, both locally and globally.
Arlene does not restrict her practice to a single medium. Instead, she seeks to tackle her ideas from different vantage points that may reveal themselves as sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, sound, and performance.