Taking her lived experience as starting point, Rhianna’s work develops through a process of editing environments or situations down to bring into focus elements that embody a particular attitude. By isolating selected fragments she articulates their importance, reflecting sensitively on personality and the construction of identity.

The collages attempted to create acutely specific situations which deal in different ways with ideas of desire or kernels of excitement. Essentially riffing on excerpts from her own imagination, memory and fantasy, the work created highly subjective scenes which make manifest loaded snapshots or imagined ideals. Magazines, newspapers and fashion advertisements both old and new provided material in this process to be redirected into assemblages which proposed new meaning.

A new video work structured around women driving, explored feminine sensibilities and attitudes in relation to the driving environment. The car could be seen in part as a stage on which persona can be constructed, acted out and fulfilled.

Read the New Writing Scotland text by Laura Edbrook here

Read the New Work Scotland 2011/12 publication here

New Work Scotland Programme was an initiative launched by Collective in 2000. Through an open call, New Work Scotland Programme identified and supported some of the most promising new artists working in Scotland - providing them with the opportunity to create new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public. The 2011/12 participants were Gordon Schmidt,
Rhianna Turnbull, Amelia Bywater & Christian Newby, Florrie James, Oliver Braid, Joey Villemont, Ash Reid and Jack McConville

New Writing Scotland grew out of New Work Scotland Programme and was initiated in 2004 in collaboration with Edinburgh College of Art's Centre for Visual and Cultural Studies, to promote creative writing about the visual arts coupled with targeted support to the exhibiting artists - providing them with them with their first artists text.