Miranda Forrester (b. 1997 in London, UK) is a British painter whose practice explores intimacy, identity, embodiment, and the queer Black female gaze. Working primarily through painting, she reimagines the language of life drawing and art history through a queer Black feminist and desiring lens, creating spaces where Black women and non-binary people are represented as expansive, self-possessed subjects.
Forrester’s paintings explore intimacy, connection, and interiority, often depicting figures within domestic and private exterior spaces. Her compositions move between quiet solitude and vibrant communal settings, capturing gestures, glances, and encounters imbued with tenderness, ambiguity, and playfulness. Drawing on visual languages found in cinema, literature, music, and Renaissance painting, Forrester creates scenes in which desire and intimacy unfold slowly and freely. Water is a recurring motif, functioning as a threshold and a site of liberation, where her figures inhabit their bodies and surroundings with ease.
At the core of Forrester’s practice is an engagement with the historical representation of the Black female body within Western art. Her work confronts the persistent invisibility of Black women within the art historical canon, reclaiming the language of life drawing from the male gaze and rearticulating it through a queer Black feminist perspective. Drawing on Kevin Quashie’s understanding of Black interiority, Forrester considers quietness as a space of radical expressiveness, vulnerability, and sovereignty. Her figures occupy spaces of warmth, tenderness, and self-reflection, foregrounding the power of being in relation to oneself and others.
Materiality is central to Forrester’s approach to painting. She incorporates polycarbonate sheeting and bespoke framing to create translucent surfaces that dissolve the boundaries between figure and ground, allowing her figures to appear as though they move, breathe, and shift within the space of the work. Lines and translucent brushstrokes frequently extend beyond the stretcher and onto the surrounding wall, further disrupting the conventional boundaries of painting. Through these layered surfaces, Forrester explores the complexities of womanhood, femininity, gender, and sexuality while embracing ambiguity and multiple readings.
Forrester has exhibited internationally, with solo and group exhibitions across the UK, Europe, the United States, and South Korea. Her work has been presented at institutions and galleries including the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Venice Biennale, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, Saatchi Gallery, London, Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, and Foundry Seoul. Her work is held in the Government Art Collection, Arts Council Collection, Soho House Collection, and the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection. Looking ahead, Forrester will present her work at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, taking place from 15 October to 18 October 2026.