Artist statement
Rachael is an established artist who creates powerful, semi-abstract, mixed media paintings inspired by the natural environment.
Avenda’s exploration of strong faces shows she is getting fed up with the word beautiful. It takes everything away and gives us nothing.
Extended Bio
Rachael: I come from a creative family and there was never any question in my mind that I would become a visual artist, apart from when, as a very young child for some reason I wanted to be an opera singer - I have no idea where that came from!
I guess with my working life I have taken bold decisions - starting with rebelling and going to art school in Liverpool (fantastic) rather than probably more sensibly in London. Then when my design practice had been going brilliantly for many years realising that I was not making art for myself and doing something radical about that by retraining and making big changes.
I view my creative practice in the same way, it is personal and I respond instinctively. I feel tremendously privileged that people like and buy my work, that I have gallery representation, frequent shows and that I am invited to take part in group projects, organisations and exhibitions.
I paint and draw because I believe the arts can communicate qualities and emotions that words alone cannot and I want to share this. I make paintings and drawings as an emotional response to the natural world, my work is mixed media, semi abstract with a focus on colour, texture and surface. I see my paintings as an environment allowing imaginative connections and with the ability for people to make their own personal interpretations. I am interested in the link between physical form, story telling and change. I want the viewer to experience, for example, that phycological state of mind created at the moment between wakefulness and dreaming, that threshold liminal space where alchemy occurs.
I look at landscapes, seascapes and the ever changing weather. The intimate landscape beneath my feet is just as engrossing as the grander view, and the interplay between the two, the near and the far, just as stimulating. The relationships with the materials used and the image created is important, one is responsible to the other, they are symbiotic, resulting in a dialogue and change.
My work starts with a precise idea. However the making is far from clear or straightforward. The actual process is often uncomfortable and meandering as I layer, stripdown, replace, sometimes wash off and rebuild until I achieve my conceived outcome - that moment does eventually appear and it is unmistakable but getting there is always and interesting learning experience.
The images I have shown here are current and developmental, they are drawings, complete in themselves but from which I will develop into more drawings, collages, prints and paintings. I work with markmaking in the same way as with my finished paintings, describing, building and interacting towards an end statement. More work and news can be seen on my website and social media.
www.rachaelbennettpaintings.com
Instagram. @rachaelannab
facebook.rachaelbennett.com
This year at Open studios I will have drawings and paintings with lots to talk about and I am sharing my venue with Avenda Burnell Walsh. Avenda is a very different artist to me but the connections are strong, she is also a director of Devon Artists and we have worked collaboratively for many years which we will be pleased to share with you when you come and visit us.
Avenda: My exploration of strong faces shows I am getting a bit fed up with the word beautiful. It takes everything away and gives us nothing in return. When we award status beauty we deny strength and intelligence. If status beauty is not awarded, what then?
Strong Woman You, Strong Woman Me is a series of work, growing out of #metoo and lockdown, the faces looking out at us, the eyes talking for so many women around the world who have to be silent. I may not be able to tell their stories but I can help them ask the questions.
Faces also keep appearing and asking their recycling questions of me. All part of a body of work, the Salon de Reussée:
In The Salon de Reussée, the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo, reworked, new work found within discards, actively mining the thrown away to discover a dialogue for our joint future. The old faces stare out from their canvas world asking past generations what they were thinking when they mined our earth for profit and gain … again and again. The same faces look forward with raised eyebrows, questions for those growing into our future, and asking how we can use art to highlight and change the course of commercialism … leading us to revel in the re-found, the reused, the rediscovered, finding value in the thrown away.
Materials used are old canvasses, their past marks and textures intentionally visible, old half tubes of paints from fund raising artist sales, brushes and tools from a young artist friend who died unexpectedly. My father’s art box recently inherited. I use and treasure these inputs to all my work. And frames, why look to plastic, China, water use and shipping, new pressures on our world, when sheds, attics, jumbles and charity shops are cluttered with the very frames that robbed the earth once already. They cannot surely go to landfill or burn and carbonise.
Atelier Avenda, French for my gallery, rambled around France with me for a decade. Now back in Devon I am becoming fascinated by faces, figures and abstractions. In essence my work is getting a bit weird, but I like it that way. Currently I am struggling with, but enjoying, my quest to find emotional residues and fix them to canvas, board and paper. Works are in progress. I will let you know. I studied art, drama and film at Exeter University and the University of California (Santa Barbara).
Group Members
Avenda Burnell Walsh, atelieravenda@gmail.com, https://avenda.uk @rebelwithoutherdrawers
Rachael Bennett, rachaelannab@gmail.com, @rachaelannab
