Rachel’s creative process explores a rare threshold: the moment when movement, emotion and energy align so profoundly that they feel transcendent. This state - sought by athletes, performers and mystics and occasionally felt by us all – lies at the heart of her practice.
In her current work, she partners with choreographers and trained ballet dancers through a method she calls Symbiotic Enquiry. Instead of bringing predetermined ideas or props, Rachel allows the unfolding movement and energy fields to shape her reactions. Every gesture sparks a new hypothesis, every subtle shift in energy invites fresh observation in a form of iterative exchange. In this way, Rachel’s role becomes that of a Resonant Catalyst, influencing the work without dictating its path, enabling both the performance and her art to evolve in tandem.
Every gesture sparks a new hypothesis, every subtle shift in energy invites fresh observation
She brings her background in scientific research to each collaborative project – observation, hypothesis, testing and adjustment can guide her decisions, all while leaving space for the unexpected discoveries that a true enquiry demands. This intricate balance between structure and intuition defines every aspect of her process.
Reuben Turning 1, 2023
Central to this approach is Rachel’s extensive use of colour and layering, underpinned by her deep understanding of artists’ pigments. Trained in the techniques of the early Italian and Dutch Renaissance masters as well as insights from early 19th Century texts, Rachel creates experimental colour works that serve as a laboratory of intensity, emotional resonance and movement. These standalone studies simultaneously serve to inform her larger figurative paintings. In these figurative works, each layer builds upon the last, much like a sequence of trials, until the final composition is revealed, capturing the raw essence of the performance in a single visual statement.
Rachel’s paintings embody the duality of peak performance: those reflective moments when time seems suspended, alongside surges of ecstasy when movement crests. This pursuit resonates with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and Diane Ackerman’s Deep Play—states of heightened focus where action becomes instinctive and absorbing. Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa captures that sense of transcendence and awe, where the boundaries between flesh and spirit dissolve, momentarily lifting humanity beyond its earthly frame.
Transcendence becomes neither myth nor metaphor but a reality woven into the fabric of human possibility.
Though few remain at this pinnacle for long, Rachel’s work argues that it is not an illusion but an attainable experience. By rendering these fleeting instants in paint, she reveals that what many regard as mystical or elusive is something that can be felt, observed, and shared. Here, transcendence becomes neither myth nor metaphor but a reality woven into the fabric of human possibility.
She invites viewers to see, feel, and ponder how a discipline rooted in observation can lead to moments of profound transformation. By fusing structure with spontaneity, analysis with artistry, she shows us that our capacity to surpass the ordinary may be far greater than we realise—and that in these brief instants of transcendence, we glimpse the extraordinary