About

I don’t have a zero to six figure story for you. I don’t even have a story. I have a life that I am in the middle of.

Once upon a time I worked in an arts centre, creating programmes of classes for adults and running a small community gallery. I lived in a lovely Victorian garden flat. My existence was creative and full. It was also marked by overwork, perfectionism and near constant anxiety. I had spent countless years trying to wedge my own creativity in to a life that was becoming busier and more stressful by the week. My job description became bigger and more unruly. My health problems more insistent than ever before. I couldn’t see a way out. Trying to recalibrate my life was like trying to turn around a twenty ton truck on the motorway. In rush hour. Tiny, pain staking adjustments that amounted to nothing. Finally, in 2017, I was made redundant and things changed. I no longer have a boho, instagrammable flat or really very much money. I live with my parents but I am infinitely happier. I am now a self employed artist and art tutor working and painting on the northern edge of the Cotswolds.

Now, about the work that I make….

I graduated in 2001 from Hull school of Art and Design with a degree in Fine Art and have been working in a variety of media for nearly twenty years. My work takes in impressions and memories as much as it does sketches and scribbled records. Contrasts of texture, tone, shape, and line interrupt the conversation between mark making and white space. There is a dance between application and reduction until a destination is arrived at, allowing historical layers of paint to peak out from beneath the surface. I am always trying to return to places from my memory and the feelings that I associate with them. My paintings are a homecoming, and an act of remembrance as I try to find my way back to these landscapes.

Elemental forces, long ago voices echoing from a tangle of weeds, the drift of early morning fog and the harsh screech of a bird of prey rising on the thermal. These things becoming scratched in paint, a scribbled in pastel or swirled in misty grey layers of acrylic. I love to stretch the limits of paint and see just what it can actually do. With this in mind, I often use mixed media techniques to achieve certain marks and gestures. Paintings are often reworked over and over until a desired effect is achieved. This means that glimpses of previous ideas, forms and scribbles are often visible as the texture builds up on the surface. In 2019 I was the recipient of the JSFineArt award for 2D media at the annual open exhibition at the Heseltine Gallery in Middleton Cheney. I have also exhibited widely in Banbury, Oxford and throughout the Cotswolds. Alongside this I am a workshop facilitator, creative enabler and confidence builder who loves to help others find their creative path in life. I run classes and workshops throughout Oxfordshire. 

Instagram @rachelannecronin