Rachel Wakefield's "Passage II" is on display in Kentuck's Teer Gallery until June 1, 2024.
Rachel is from Florence, Alabama and earned a BFA in Sculpture and Painting from the University of Alabama in 2014. In 2015, she opened a painting studio and gallery in her hometown. In 2017, she moved to Northport, Alabama where she currently resides and works full time as a graphic designer. She spends the rest of her time pursuing painting, working in her garden, and spending time exploring nature with her fiancé and their two dogs.
Rachel is best known for paintings that, when approached, reduce the realistic depiction down to distinguishable brush strokes.
" The way I think of it is when its the glares, the receding shadows, the colors. Those are the things that make the shape the shape."
Her current job as a graphic designer inspires her to push the boundaries of color, light, and space in her paintings. While this show displays some of her more well known realism underwater paintings, it more fully represents a passage of change in her life.
“From 2020 onward, we have all become especially familiar with letting go with some, or much, of what we have thought to be certain. I have used this space to explore creatively and cut loose from the certainties I felt within my own work."
As she progress in her relationship with painting she focuses on dramatizing aesthetics through subject, light, hyper-color, paint-handling, and negative space.
"I take joy in continuing to represent subject matter in an alternative light."
Her work has been exhibited locally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions, and she is the recipient of multiple awards. She has multiple paintings in both public and private collections.
"Letting go of the certainties is just as, if not more rewarding than, discovering the certainties themselves.”
The Teer Gallery is open by appointment only. Please contact Kentuck's Gallery Shop at 205-758-1257 or email Molly Nelko at mnelko@kentuck.org to schedule a viewing or to inquire about purchasing a piece.
