Rachel Stanley (b.1996, Epsom) is an artist working with painting and drawing. Her practice is concerned with ideas of safety and sanctuary, and with nature as a powerful tool for healing. For Rachel the act of painting is a spiritual and cathartic practice which allows her to connect with the natural world and her inner self, and as a way to understand anxiety.
In her practice the natural world acts as an escape from modern life, into a safe space where impermanence and imperfection are the norm and growth is free-flowing and ceaseless. Here, the ever-changing trees, skies, seas and seasons offer continual inspiration, as well as the body itself which is explored through studies of wombs, veins and cells. Rachel also takes influence from the concept of wabi-sabi and its organic, ambiguous aesthetic. Her works are sensitive, intuitive and visceral, utilising expressive mark-making and playing with the imagined and the abstracted to depict the feeling or essence of a place.
Rachel graduated from Goldsmiths in 2017 and is due to study MA Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts in 2021. In autumn 2019 she undertook a residency with Cromarty Arts Trust, Highlands. She lives and works in south-east London; her studio is based in Croydon.