Biography
Imma Maddox (b. UK 1955), predominanty a textile artist. was the daughter of Sir John Royden Maddox FRS (1925-2009), editor of Nature (1966-75 & 1980-95), and his first wife Nancy Fanning King (-1960). Born Rachel Joanna, Maddox went to Oxford University to study PPE in 1974 but suffered a breakdown and went to the Villa at Maudsley Hospital where she was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. She was helped notably by Sister Benedicta of All Saints' Convent, Oxford, and Sister Dorothy Bell, Principal of Digby Stuart College, Roehampton and learned to weave. Maddox later set up home in Camberwell, South London and since 1980, she has been artistic director of Imma Maddox Fine Art there and describes herself as disabled. She participated in The Inner Self / Drawings from the Subconscious : A Group Exhbition in partnership with Outside In (2014) where it was said: 'She has found that she has her own language for drawing hands, feet, eyes, hair, tails and horns. The meaning of what she is drawing emerges during the process. She plays creatively with the line, often going to a place she has never visited before.' The Bethlem Museum of the Mind in Beckenham, Kent has 15 of her works and the Royal Brompton & Harefield Arts (rb&hArts), London have 2 of her works given by the Contemporary Art Society in 2003.
