Rebecca Salter PRA’s drawings and paintings are partly informed by her long-standing passion for traditional Japanese art; she studied and lived in Kyoto for several years. Through the use of a limited palette dominated by tones of grey, her works are quietly complex, evoking a gentle sense of rhythm through repeated mark-making.

Combining different mediums and techniques is also a common thread in Salter’s practice. She describes her work as ‘detailed and obsessive’ and hopes that the viewer will experience it slowly. She says: ‘there’s a correlation between the time it takes for me to make works and the time it takes people to look at them’. This work on linen communicates Salter’s interest in the idea of a two-dimensional work as an object; in her early career she made ceramic pieces. The work is created in layers; a clear gel goes over an initial ground of black paint with a final layer of lilacy-grey on top. Salter then scrapes away this top layer to create tears and holes, a process she describes as ‘almost painting backwards…..pulling it out’. The final effect is reminiscent of cracked glaze on a classical urn; the history of the making process peeks through at the viewer from underneath.

Salter exhibits regularly in London and internationally, and in 2011 was given a retrospective at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. She has undertaken several architectural commissions including St George’s Hospital, Tooting and NGS Macmillan Cancer Unit, Chesterfield Royal Hospital. She has work in many private and public collections including Tate, British Museum and the Yale Centre for British Art.

Salter was elected as a Royal Academician in 2014 and, in June 2017, was elected as the Keeper of the Royal Academy. On 10th December 2019 she was elected the 27th President of the Royal Academy of Arts and became the first female to hold the position since the Academy was founded in 1768. She lives and works in London.