Interview with Rachel Mercer: Contorted Figuration

Rachel Mercer has recently joined Increase Artwork. Rachel paints to capture the motion and steps of individuals in their dealings with room and just about every other, analyzing physical and emotional connections as a result of dynamic portraits and contorted compositions.

Rachel drawing out of doors in the vicinity of a playground.

How would you describe your style and the perform you generate?

I paint figures in dynamic and sometimes contorted positions, they surface captured in movement, relocating through the area. The figures satisfy the globe and each and every other and express actual physical and emotional connections. The paintings are in oil and mainly from creativity or memory. I crank out the imagery by drawing the locations I have been, people I have noticed which includes folks I know well.

My paintings are characterised by the seen brushstrokes and layering scrapped and wiped surfaces from time to time skinny, with moments of impasto. I want every mark in the painting to stand for how I perceive issues. I have a unique curiosity in the texture of pores and skin and outfits, and this is reflected in the surface high-quality of my artworks. Fragmented brushstrokes convey the complexities of binocular vision and the distortion of house accounts for remaining able to see 180 levels in our peripheral vision.

Vanish, 2021, oil on Board, 83 x 64cm

Explain to us a little bit about the inspiration at the rear of your observe

It is interactions in between humans that I discover most inspiring. Since my imagery is about lived knowledge and initial-human being observations, the major way I find inspiration is by way of observational drawing.

Climbing body review, 2022, oil paint on paper, 90 x 76cm and a quick sketch of a baby climbing

How do you go about deciding upon the subjects and scenes for your paintings?

My drawings aid me pick out a subject. Drawing whichever catches my eye sometimes reveals matters I didn’t know about my pursuits. I also like to feel that when I’m drawing, I’m visually absorbing and including illustrations or photos to my psychological database, so that when I’m again in the studio the drawings consider me back to the remembered knowledge. Sometimes I paint right from the drawings but often, the memory of drawing is plenty of. I really don’t use photographs simply because, for me, they distract from more experiential and tactile reminiscences. When I to start with get started a painting it is a lot more like a drawing in colour, if this fails to fulfill or feel correct to me then I will paint above the prime. Overlaying illustrations or photos delivers in an factor of prospect, often the image reveals alone.

Amputation, 2022, oil on Board, 17 x 23cm

How has your practice evolved in the latest several years?

In the final yr I have moved away a lot more narrative varieties of figuration. My practice now aims to embrace opportunity and openness. Chance methods produce prospects for a greater perception of motion and rhythmic fluency inside the painting. The loose brushwork usually means the figures seem somewhere concerning presence and disappearance. I now find the system of painting very releasing I am enjoying the amplified link between impulse and painterly mark.

By yourself Again, 2021, oil on canvas, 90 x 70cm

What is an regular day like in your studio?

A cycle journey to the studio signifies I’m mentally and bodily raring to go. I will get started with studio admin: priming, stretching or preparing surfaces. I may possibly then do the job on a painting started out the night in advance of, I find its very good for consistency if I pick-up wherever I still left-off. If factors go well, I might be painting the whole day, nonetheless if items are experience sticky I could possibly do some drawing. If a drawing has likely, it is an celebration celebrated with the commence of a new painting.

Rachel’s momentary studio place and some works in progress at Dumfries Property

What/Who are your essential influences?

I am significantly fond of Rembrandt’s ‘A Girl Bathing In A Stream’ (Nationwide Gallery) and his ‘Self-portrait with Two Circles’ (Kenwood House). From the age of 13 I was in I enjoy with Rembrandt’s use of paint and texture that will make pores and skin and material glimpse alive. Gwen John’s ‘The Convalescent’ (at the Fitzwilliam Museum) was also a enormous influence on me as a university student. I was also incredibly motivated by Chinese ink portray from the Track Dynasty. Finding out at the Royal Drawing Faculty direct me to artists like Leon Kossoff, Chaïm Soutine and R.B. Kitaj who aided me see how my observe and tuition in Chinese brush painting could be utilized to figurative representation in oil paint.

Fantastic Wall, 2019, oil on board, 102 x 76cm

Who are some Rise Artwork artists with operate you might be taking pleasure in at the minute?

I have followed Robbie Bushe’s function for a when on Instagram, I adore his scenes of imagined, futuristic towns, he’s one particular to buy quicker alternatively than later! Via Increase Artwork I uncovered the do the job of Kate McCrickard, her paintings are emotional and tender but also strong with some gutsy portray, I genuinely appear forward to viewing the do the job she posts up coming.

Catastrophise, 2022, oil on canvas, 42 x 60cm

Are you at present working on any interesting new initiatives?

I lately returned from a residency at Dumfries Residence, Scotland organised by the Royal Drawing Faculty. This two-7 days residency was a opportunity for sustained, uninterrupted portray. It was excellent due to the fact I was capable to transfer seamlessly among outside painting and studio function. I am currently operating on a human body of paintings on the concept of children in playgrounds. The artist’s studio at Dumfries property is appropriate subsequent to a children’s park, all over lunchtime when the playground was busiest, I manufactured drawings of the children participating in. If the playground was empty, I built studies of the playground architecture: slides, climbing frames and see-saws.