Rachel Garrard (b. 1984) is from Devon, England, and currently lives and works in New York. While completing her graduate studies at Central Saint Martins in 2009. Her paintings encapsulate complex systems of reference to the body, geometry, and ritual. Working with materials like natural dyes or soil, these layered works reflect a subtle attention to the accumulated charge of her materials and their potential beyond the rationality of pigment. The work explores visibility, light and perception, revealing a contemplative internal methodology in which process and materiality unite to reveal a hidden light. Her faded hues and organic palette are derived from found materials collected on her travels, which she refines into pigment. She uses these homemade dyes to stain, layer, create shadows, and light and depth; the paintings echo their transformative undertaking.
Solo exhibitions include: Primal Form, sign and symbols, New York (2018); Borderline, Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York (2017); Repeating Traces, PIoneer Works, Brooklyn (2016).
Group exhibitions include: In Orbit, Kristin Hjellegjerde Galerie, Berlin, (2021); Primal Forms II, Art With Me Festival, Habitas, Tuluö, Mexico (2018); Body, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2017); No Commission, curated by Nicola Vassell, Kraftwerk Rummelsburg, Berlin (2017); Summer show, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2016); Unseen Collections, Chez Eux, Curated by Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos, Athens (2016); If Only Bella Abzug Were Here, Marc Straus Gallery, New York (2016); DRIP, Spring/Break, New York (2016); Where the Day Begins, curated by Marc Donnadieu, LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, d‘art contemporain et d‘art brut, France (2015); SELF: Portraits of Artists in Their Absence, curated by Filippo Fossati, Maurizio Pellegrin and Diana Thompson, National Academy Museum, New York (2015); Geometry: Rachel Garrard, Chris Agnew + Nick Hornby, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2012).
Residencies include the Atacama Telescope Farm in Chile in 2011, the Center for the Holographic Arts at Ohio State University in 2012 and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in 2018.