Rose Finn-Kelcey

Rose Finn-Kelcey (4 March 1945 – 13 February 2014) was a British artist, born in Northampton. Finn-Kelcey grew up in Buckinghamshire as part of a large farming family, and went on to study at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design, and later Chelsea College of Art in London. She died on 13 February 2014 of motor neurone disease. She lived and worked in London from 1968.

Finn-Kelcey worked in a variety of media including performance, video, sound, installation, sculpture, photography, papercut and posters.

Early work Finn-Kelcey's work in the late 1960s and 1970s emerged alongside that of increasing numbers of artists concerned with formal experimentation and conceptual practices. Several of the early works consisted of making and flying flags in publicly visible spaces, as in Power for the People (1972). In this piece, Finn-Kelcey made large flags from silver tissue and black bunting bearing the slogan 'POWER FOR THE PEOPLE', which were hung from Battersea Power Station in London. Commissioned by the Central Electricity Generating Board, the flags were removed due to complaints from Chelsea residents across the river. Finn-Kelcey's work also appeared in exhibitions and spaces with explicitly feminist agendas, for instance she performed Mind The Gap as part of About Time: video, performance and installation by 21 women artists within the 'women's season' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the winter of 1980.

Examples of artists Finn-Kelcey exhibited alongside during the 1970s include Carlyle Reedy, Paul Burwell, Tina Keane and David Medalla, all of whom featured in the London Calling presents Performance Plus exhibition in which Finn-Kelcey performed The Boilermaker's Assistant. Finn-Kelcey also had some involvement in the Artists For Democracy project, which was chaired by Medalla and based in Fitzrovia, London.

Work since the 1980s

In 1987 Finn-Kelcey exhibited what Guy Brett describes as one of her 'best-known works', Bureau de Change at Matt's Gallery in East London. Commissioned by Art and Sacred Places, it was the joint winner of the 2007/2008 ACE Award for ‘Art in a Religious Context’.

Whilst she has been described as 'one of the most imaginative and inventive artists of her generation',