COMPLETED OFFERING: NATHANIEL RACKOWE

Released 28/12/2025 - 6 PM CET

Nathaniel Rackowe (b. 1975, Cambridge) is a London-based artist whose large-scale light sculptures and urban-inspired structures explore the sensory experience of navigating the modern city. Using industrial materials such as glass, concrete, plastics, and scaffolding, he captures the shifting interplay of light across buildings and streets, balancing stark geometry with atmospheric beauty. Influenced by Modernism, film, and video games, Rackowe reinterprets the language of light beyond Minimalism to reflect the rhythms and contrasts of contemporary urban life.

Rackowe holds a BA in Sculpture from Sheffield Hallam University (1998) and an MFA in Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2001). His multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, painting, installation, public art, and performance, often in collaboration with choreographer Angela Woodhouse.

Recent highlights include a spectacular public sculpture commissioned by British Land for The Optic, a new office and lab development in Cambridge (2025), a major light installation at Southbank Centre in London (2025 & 2024), a nine-city commission for Yves Saint Laurent (2022), and performances at the Oslo Opera House and the Royal Society of Sculptors in London (2019). He has exhibited internationally in London, Dubai, Paris, Beirut, Belgrade, and Aarhus, with permanent and temporary public artworks across Europe and the Middle East. His works are held in major public and private collections, including the UK Government Art Collection, Tate Modern (London), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Getty Center (Los Angeles), the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao), Fondation Maeght (France), the Kröller-Müller Museum (Netherlands), Museo Jumex (Mexico City), the Museum of Modern Art (Lima), the LVMH Collection (Paris), the Hauser & Wirth Collection (Zurich), and CIFO – the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami).

Selected Exhibitions and Projects: 

·   Upcoming for 2026

Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (scheduled for March 2026) – Solo Show

·   2025

“Desire Lines”, Light installation showed at the Winter Light Festival - 2025 Edition, Southbank Centre, London, UK (Nov 10-Jan 18, 2026) – Group Exhibition, Ongoing

“Asphaltos Phos”, Varvara Roza Galleries, London, UK (Nov 10-29) – Solo Show, Ongoing

“Cure3”, Bonhams - Selling Exhibition, London, UK (Feb 01-05) – Group Show

“Border Realm”, Public sculpture commissioned by British Land for The Optic, Cambridge, UK – Project

·   2024

“Desire Lines”, Light installation showed at the Winter Light Festival - 2024 Edition, Southbank Centre, London, UK (Nov 01-Feb 02, 2025) – Group Exhibition

“Art021 Shanghai”, Art Fair - Lawrie Shabibi, Shanghai, China (Nov 07-10) – Group Show

“The Hiding Place”, The Blockhouse, Southend-on-Sea (one day exhibition), UK (Aug 24) – Group Show

“Drawing Biennial”, Drawing Room London, London, UK (May 03-Jul 03) – Group Show

·   2023

“Cure3”, Bonhams - Selling Exhibition, London, UK (Jan 13-17) – Group Show

·   2022

“Drift Point”, Multi-city commission for Yves Saint Laurent – 15 sculptures & 1 large scale installation on view in Paris/Milan/London/Dubai/Tokyo/Seoul/Los Angeles/New York – Project

“Nathaniel Rackowe: Fractured Landscapes”, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (Sep 22-Nov 04) – Solo Show

“Take Me Away to Better Days”, Art Design Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon (Jul 15-20) – Group Show

“Summer Exhibition”, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (Jun 21-Aug 21) – Group Show

“Summer Lights”, Large scale installation at Canary Warf, London, UK (June 20-Aug 20) – Group Show

·   2021

“Lost in the Right Direction”, Art Design Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon (Dec 04-Jan 09) – Group Show

“Topographie de la Lumière”, Topographie de l’Art, Paris, France (Nov 20-Jan 29, 2022) – Group Show

“50/50”, Way Out East Gallery - University of East London, London, UK (Oct 18-29) – Group Show

“Passing Through”, Fold Gallery, London, UK (Sep 08-Oct 17) – Solo Show

“Online”, Hill Art Foundation, New York, USA (Aug 20-Sep 08) – Group Show

“Under Construction”, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (May 31-Jun 26) – Group Show

·   2020

“O Sole Mio”, Parasol Unit, London, UK (Online) – Group how

“Square Prism”, International Light Art Biennale, Hildesheim, Germany (Jan 23-26) – Solo Show

·   2019

“Luminous Territories”, Public art installation at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, UAE – Project

“(Un)touched”, Collaborative performance with choreographer Angela Woodhouse at The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet House, Oslo, Norway (September) – Project

“(De)figured”, Dance collaboration with choreographer Angela Woodhouse at the Royal Society Sculptors, London, UK (June) – Project

“Mémoire Vive”, Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris, France (Jun 14-Jul 12) – Group Show

“Origin”, Large-scale permanent sculpture commissioned by the city of Aarhus, Denmark – Project

·   2018

“(Un)touched”, National Museum of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia – Group Show

“The Shape of a City”, Letitia Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon (Jun 27-Aug 25) – Solo Show

“Summer Exhibition”, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (Jun 12 – Aug 19) – Group Show

“Each Day An Artist”, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (May 12-Sep 01) – Group Show

“Heavy Metal”, Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris, France (Apr 06-May 12) – Group Show

·   2017

“In the Mood of Space”, Galerie Studiolo for Paris Design Week, Paris, France (Sep 08-16) – Group Show

“Occasional Geometries”, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK (Jul 15-Oct 29) – Group Show

“Threshold”, Fold Gallery, London, UK (Jun 08-Jul 15) – Solo Show

“Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer”, private sculpture park, Fulmer, UK (May 20-Aug 06) – Group Show

“Signs of the City”, Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris, France (Mar 31-May 13) – Solo Show

·   2016

“Black Shed Expanded”, Parasol Unit, London, UK (Oct 27-Marc 12, 2017) – Solo how

“The Blue Hour”, Carousel Gallery (one day exhibition), London, UK (Oct 05) – Group Show

“Unseen”, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (May 25-Sep 08) – Group Show

“Low Fidelity by Nathaniel Rackowe and Ulrik Weck”, Etage Projects, Copenhagen, Denmark, (May 20-Jul 30) – Group Show

“Il Suffit D’un Grand Morceau de Ciel”, Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris, France (Mar 25-May 21) – Group Show

“Sculpture by the Sea”, 12th Annual Exhibition, Perth, Australia, (Mar 03-20) – Group Show

“Portals To Fantasy Destinations”, House of St Barnabas, London, UK (Feb 05-May 16) – Group Show

“The Luminous City”, Installation in the lobby of One Canada Square, London, UK (Jan 12-Mar 12) – Solo Show

·   2015

“Sculpture by the Sea”, Fourth and Final Biennial Exhibition, Aarhus, Denmark (Jun 05-Jul 05) – Group Show

“Radiant Trajectory”, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE (Jan 12-Mar 07) – Solo Show

·   2014

“Edge Lands”, Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris, France (Dec 18-Feb 14, 2015) – Solo Show

“Light Fantatic”, House of Nobleman, London, UK (Oct 14-18) – Group Show

“The Consequences of Light”, Bodson Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (Sep14-Nov 30) – Solo Show

“A’Rebours”, Bischoff/Weiss Gallery, London, UK (Feb 13-Mar 29) – Group Show 

·   2013

“Empty Lines”, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France (Sep 12-Oct 19) – Group Show

“Dynamo - A Century of Light and Motion in Art, 1913-2013”, Grand Palais, Paris, France (Apr 10-Jul 22) – Group Show

“Reflections on Space”, Bischoff/Weiss Gallery, London, UK (Mar 14-May 04) – Solo Show

Rackowe’s PT works are a distillation of the artist’s core enquiry: how the contemporary city is experienced not through architecture as static mass, but through the shifting conditions of light, colour, and reflection that shape our perception of built space. In this series, Rackowe reduces form to pure chromatic and spatial gradients. Here, industrial Coretex GRP panels become carriers of atmospheric phenomena and surfaces that appear to hold the memory of a horizon line. The upper planes, articulated in saturated pinks and neon-inflected reds, suggest the fugitive light of an urban sunset; while the lower sections fall into a deep, graphite-black dissolution, recalling the shadowed volumes of the city’s understructures, scaffolding, hoardings, and nightfall beneath high-rise mass. The use of

dichroic film is crucial: the surface subtly shifts as the viewer moves, producing colour changes that echo the way city light mutates across glass, steel, and composite cladding. The work never has a single “fixed” colour state; instead, it performs in time, as the spectral conditions of urban light do. These panels are not ‘paintings’ in the traditional sense. They are light-responsive objects. They function like optical thresholds: abstractions that contain within them the deep emotional temperature of the city. From the neon intensity of active construction zones to the darker, industrial quiet of transition spaces after dusk. With the PT works, Rackowe achieves one of the most distilled articulations of his thesis: the city is not an object we look at, but an atmosphere we move through —a field of shifting luminosity, colour, and density. This series takes the monumental architectural experience that underpins his large public installations and compresses it into highly concentrated, materially precise, wall-based works, sculptures operating in the register of painting.