Rachel Wilsey, submitted artwork
Rachel Wilsey
Painting
Seattle, WA
Rachel Wilsey (B. 1980) is an abstract painter, printmaker, and collage artist whose work journeys into the sense-memory of color and light. Raised in a tiny town at the base of the Rocky Mountains, Rachel’s wild childhood sliding down red rocks and romping through pine forests was equally infused with art in a multicultural home full of artisan crafts from around the world and a large collection of contemporary abstract art. These sense-memories are the well that she draws on in her current painting practice. Rachel holds a BA from Reed College, where she majored in Economics and Dance. She studied Limón technique alongside experimental multi-media and post-modern dance. Experimental new-media led her to the newly computer-based tools for graphic design and a career as a graphic designer. Beginning as the Marketing and Graphics Manager for the international mecca of modern dance, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, she continued her design career for 12 years in Massachusetts and Washington focusing primarily on design for the arts and non-profits. Now based in Seattle, Rachel shifted her creative focus to painting during the Pandemic. Her practice reflects her creative roots in experimental dance. She approaches the canvas improvisationally and explores kinetically until the work has the textural depth and joyful color resonance that clicks with her sense memory. Rachel was a member of the Ballard Collective until the summer of 2025, when they lost their building
Works
Rachel Wilsey, submitted artwork
Journeying into the Sense-Memory of Color and Light Through abstract work in acrylic, watercolor, monotype, collage, and mixed media, I create work that brings to life my visceral feelings and memories of light and color from a lifetime of gardening, exploring, and living in the varied natural environments of North America. Natural light is fluid and constantly changing. Outdoors, away from artificial light, color is in constant motion. As garden writer and deep observer of color, Lorane Edwards Forkner said so well, “This makes color slippery, an ever-changing, almost sentient presence in our environment… colors don’t sit still…[they] flow, bounce, vibrate, or hum.” I work improvisationally and experimentally to create vibrant colorscapes with textural body and movement. I explore until I come to a place where the work has a joyful color resonance that can transport me into the bodily feelings and sense-memory I am trying to convey. When I hit that joyful color and textural resonance, viewers are drawn in, getting close to examine the layers and entering their own sense-memories. My work provides a place of calm where viewers can enter the subconscious, free associate, and come out feeling joyful and refreshed or energized by their own memories.
