Summer Rain

Rachel studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, focusing on painting and etching, followed by a post-graduate in Printmaking at Brighton College of Art in 1984 gaining a distinction. She has been making etchings since then and now works full time from her studio in Nottingham. Rachel’s work has been exhibited extensively over the years including at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the London Original Print Fair. Her work is in many private collections in this country and abroad as well as featuring in Film and TV productions. Defining her work succinctly as about ‘the figure in landscape’ her interests and concerns rest in areas of human response to ‘place’ and the fragility of life. Inner and outer worlds are juxtaposed providing a unique language of landscape. Through colour, contrasts, movement, the playful and sometimes the more sombre, the work hopes to question the way we view the familiar offering hints of reflection and joy in its endeavour to capture the moment. Inspired by traditional techniques her work has a contemporaneous quality offering a fresh look at the world. Observation, sketching and drawing are central to her work, in etching, monotype and painting, each process informing the other. Over the years Rachel has experimented with the parameters of etching and a variety of metals, their potential and their limitations. The sugar lift process applied with a paintbrush, and the use of aquatint, allows expression through painterly marks alongside the fine line of drypoint, where marks are directly scored into the metal plate. Each work has been made and printed by hand, most images involve more than one plate, for example a black and a colour plate, or two. The colour is applied with a ‘poupée’, a small piece of scrim, and further colour is sometimes added by the use of the chine collé technique, where fine oriental papers are added during the printing process. All editions are small.