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Denzil Forrester (born 1956) is a Grenada-born artist who moved to England as a child in 1967.Niru Ratnam, "Denzil Forrester", in Alison Donnell (ed.), Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture, Routledge, 2002, p. 117. Previously based in London, where he was a lecturer at Morley College, "Life Drawing & Painting" , Morley College. he moved to Truro, Cornwall, in 2016.Joshua Surtees, "Artist Denzil Forrester: 'When I tell people I’ve moved to Cornwall they say, "Why, there are no black people there!"" (interview), The Observer, 12 May 2018.
He has also been the recipient of two major awards at the Royal Academy Summer Show, "Press release: Quad"
"Denzil Forrester: 'You have to find your niche, Tate, 2 June 2017. His paintings are in the collections of Freshfields, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, the Walker Collection, Atlanta,, Denzil Forrester website. as well as the Government Art Collection.
Notable exhibitions in which Forrester has participated include From Two Worlds, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1986, and Dub Transition: A Decade of Paintings 1980–1990 (1990). "Denzil Forrester", Diaspora Artists. In 1995, he organised and curated The Caribbean Connection, exhibitions and cultural exchanges around the work of Caribbean artists. "The Caribbean Connection", Diaspora Artists. The exhibition was held from 15 September to 13 October 1995 at the Islington Arts Factory (where Forrester's studio was located) "Islington Arts Factory", Diaspora Arts. featured Ronald Moody (from Jamaica), Aubrey Williams (Guyana), Frank Bowling (Guyana), John Lyons (Trinidad) and Bill Ming (Bermuda), with the catalogue providing a "Historical Background Sketch" by John La Rose and Errol Lloyd.
Forrester's 2018 exhibition, From Trench Town to Porthowan, at the Jackson Foundation Gallery in Cornwall from 26 May to 23 June that year, was a retrospective curated by Peter Doig and Matthew Higgs. "Peter Doig To Curate Grenadian British Artist Denzil Forrester Exhibition", Artlyst, 19 April 2018.
Forrester is the subject of a documentary film by Julian Henriques entitled Denzil's Dance.
In 2019, Art on the Underground commissioned Forrester's first major public commission, a large-scale artwork titled "Brixton Blue", to be on view at Brixton station from September 2019 to September 2020.
Forrester was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to art.
In 2021, Morley College named an art studio in Forrester's honour, when Sara Robertson-Jonas, Head of Visual and Digital Arts, said: "During his time at Morley, Denzil inspired generations of students to achieve their potential as artists. Denzil epitomises the many high calibre tutors at Morley who are professional artists, musicians and writers who come to share this love of creativity with others. ...It is wonderful to now see him receive international recognition for his work and for us to commemorate his contribution to Morley by naming his favourite teaching space The Denzil Forrester Studio."
Eddie Chambers has characterised Forrester's work as ranging from "dark, brooding and sometimes menacing works, through to bright, liberated paintings resonating with bright and vibrant colours", his subject matter encompassing the atmosphere of nightclubs and of carnival, typically using large-scale canvases to produce paintings that critic John Russell Taylor has called "distinctive and unmistakable". Together with its depictions of street scenes and social commentary about city life,Andrew Hughes, "Denzil Forrester Paintings", Visual Arts Archive, Southampton, the South Coast and London 1985 – 1989. particularly dealing with the racial tensions of the 1980s in the UK,Henry Love, "Denzil Forrester & Tam Joseph: Cries Against Injustice in a Racially Divided Britain", J'ai-fame, 18 December 2009. Forrester's work has been described as "a series of historical documents related to the making of Black Britain".
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