Artist and landscape architect

Rachel is an artist and classical musician with a post graduate degree in Landscape Architecture. As the lucky recipient of scholarships and awards to further her work, she has had residencies in Sri Lanka, Berlin and Hungary. In Scotland she exibits regularly with the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists, the Scottish Society of Artist Architects and with the Scottish Society of Artists. Her work is concerned with the land and our cultural heritage; how the land is perceived, used and how to create conversations open to all artists, ecologists and community groups. Rachel is an enthusiastic educator and practitioner, and works both on site and in her studio.

Paintings in oil on canvas

As both a painter and a musician, I enjoy the parallels of the two disciplines. The mixture of honed technique allowing, at their best, the music to soar and the colour to dance. I feel that form and colour is music to the eye. Or, perhaps, colour and form do the same to my brain as music does. Painting strikes a chord, or dischord, between itself and the beholder.

Yet landscape painting seems, to me, to be a balance between sensation and analysis and achieve a level of restraint which imparts intensity.

I am experimenting with the idea of visual sound, long notes, and chords of colour.

Flemish Landscapes 2012-2018

Living in a flat landscape has perceptual challenges that can be disorientating but endlessly fascinating on analyisis.

This body of work on canvas was founded on the pursuit of 1500 daily oil pastel sketches, performed throughout the seasons, and exhibited (as a solo show) in the Lakken Halle, a Heritage Building in the medieval city of Zoutleeuw, once used for weaving.

My work is about where I live, because this is what I do. When I travel, it is all about sketches and sketch books, relating to my whereabouts. Settled, with a studio, my work is the result of a longer dialogue with my surroundings and is deeply reflective.

Oil sketches from my studio in Belgium. The practice amounted to 1500 over 3 years

1. Water colour of Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh as part of my post graduate degree in Landscape Architecture (1993) 2. Oil painting of Flemish poplars on canvas (2020)

3. Pen, ink and watercolour sketch of Lisbon (2016) 4. Venice, in watercolour, after a conference on cultural and landscape interpretation of Unesco sites in Europe (2024)

Botanical illustrations

I have been practicing this discipline since I graduated in 1993 and I received The Geoffrey Bawa Scholarship to study, as artist in residence, Brief Garden and Lunuganga. Pen, ink and watercolour are my chosen mediums on heavy rag cotton watercolour paper of archival quality. I have continued to paint in botanical gardens in India, Belgium, Australia and the UK. Being self taught, I have developed a style of my own, which, although true to life, happily omits the stricter rules of Botanical Illustration. I am fascinated by botanical artists who worked in 16th Century onwards. Many of these artists were intrepid women explorers or unknown Indian and Chinese catalogue artists who worked for botanical gardens and shipping companies trading in plants for Kew Gardens.

Avocado

Lock down project - growing avocadoes from pips

Anemone 'wild swan'

Smeaton Nursery and Gallery, East Lothian

Iris germanica

Kruidtuin Project, Leuven, Belgium

Rhododendron

Dawyck Botanical garden

Some Sri Lankan plants from the collection of over 250 illustrations, exhibited at Brief Gardens and in Colombo at Gallery 706, Barefoot. Now held in Brief Garden House and Museum and in the Geoffrey Bawa Trust.