Rachel Whittaker

Statement:

Rachel's paintings are developed from her interest in everyday, amateur photography. Rachel has been using found negatives and photographs from her own family collection. Rachel illuminates the negatives herself using a small light box and then re-photographed them.
Rachel has been investigating how her attention or focus shifts from when Rachel takes photographs, to when she looks at them again some time later, with a view to painting from them. Cameras automatically capture general, rather than specific subject matter. Additional visual information is often recorded beyond the particular element the photographer focuses on. The negative photographs are interesting in another way because Rachel does not know the intentions of the photographer and Rachel has no way of finding them out. Rachel has been exploring these responses through the medium of paint. Rachel is interested in looking at how the image emerges and is built up on the surface as Rachel translates the photographic sources into paintings. Rachel has been experimental with a variety of painting techniques, such as glazing, underpainting and the removal of layers. Rachel has also explored the intensity of colour and the figure/ground relationship.

CV

June 2009 – Degree Show at University College Falmouth

February 2008 - 2nd Year Fine Art Exhibition at The Poly, Falmouth

2006-9 – Ba (Hons) Fine Art Degree University College Falmouth

June 2006 - Foundation Diploma Show at Cornwall College, St.Austell