Isabel Rock

Surrealist Painting Royal College Art LGBTQ+ Female Artist Banana Blue Heads

2011

Isabel Rock Isabel Rock is a creator of contemporary fairy tales. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, her work is an explosion of strange occurrences while a surreal narrative takes the audience on a journey into the imagination. 

In October 2023 Isabel was the winner of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, known as the UK’s most prestigious annual open exhibition for drawing. 

Taking inspiration from Japanese woodblock prints and Indian miniature painting Rock has developed a unique collage technique that combines bold structures with large-scale woodblock prints and intricate detailing. 

The subject is a grand mixture of humour, drama, hidden morals, fanciful characters, modern culture, mythical beings and fantastical situations. Rock creates a world that pulls you in and demands your attention. Quality of line is paramount, the drawings are created using a dipping pen and acrylic ink. An essential tool is a squirrel’s hair brush that gives incredible fine lines and was purchased on her travels in India. 

Born in Hammersmith, London in 1981, Rock knew her destiny was to be an artist. Studying Fine Art Printmaking at The University of Brighton and graduating with First Class Honours in 2004 she went on to do a Masters Degree at The Royal College of Art in London, continuing her studies in printmaking and drawing, graduating in 2008. Her first solo show at Bearspace Gallery in Deptford, London in April 2009 sold out and was the beginning of a career that continues to rise. Rock participated in the first ever India Art Fair represented by Art 1821 Gallery, where her detailed and intricate work was met with great appreciation from collectors and public. 

She has since participated in international residencies in India, Iceland, Germany and West Africa as well as building up her portfolio and exhibiting at various galleries internationally. In 2013 she won the Arts Foundation Printmaking Fellowship, a £10,000 award given to emerging artists in certain fields, only six are awarded each year. This funded a move to Berlin as the vibrant art scene in the city seemed to be the perfect place to make the next steps in her career. The city proved to be a valuable creative inspiration as it was here that Rock began to explore the written side of her visual stories, which she now performs at spoken word nights. 

Rock sat out the pandemic in her port-a-cabin studio near Reading, UK, creating a series of large-scale collages and writing surreal short stories. In 2024 Isabel is to be given a solo show at Hastings Contemporary as part of her winning the 2023 Trinity Buoy Drawing prize. 

Isabel lives and works in London where she also enjoys roller skating, growing sweet peas, reading novels and thinking up new and wild things to draw. Isabel Rock’s artworks are held in the collections of The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, The Royal College of Art, London and many Private and Public collections primarily in The UK and India.