Rachel Castle is a name you surely know by now – we’ve been known to sing her praises on the regular around here. We’re long time fans of Rachel’s distinctive paintings and screen prints, her cheeky hand stitched applique and embroidered artworks, and of course, her range of beautiful handprinted bedlinen. And so it’s with great excitement that we announce Rachel’s first Melbourne solo show, BLOOM, opening later this month at our little gallery in Collingwood!
Rachel is an endlessly versatile creative. Both an artist and designer, her impressive career background includes time spent working at The Conran Shop in London, before running her own successful branding agency in the UK, and of course in more recent years, growing her own popular homewares brand, CASTLE, in Sydney.
The past four years have seen Rachel’s art practice develop exponentially. With an intuitive understanding of colour and form, Rachel works on both paper and canvas, combining bold, graphic shapes with washed out, semi-translucent layers of colour and texture. Floral motifs are a re-occuring theme in her work.
‘From seed, to stem, to petal, to the full blown glory of a perfectly formed flower, the wonder and magic of how flora pollinates, blossoms and dies is something I’ve always found completely fascinating’ says Rachel. The almost accidental beauty of this process that produces light, shade, texture and form is something Rachel seeks to encapsulate in this exhibition.
‘BLOOM is a culmination of all my painting and screen print strokes over the past few years. It’s a big final BANG of all my favourite colours, textures, layers and treatments.’ – Rachel Castle.
In the studio, Rachel is meticulous. She makes each painting one at a time, from start to finish. Each painting may require up to 6 or 7 different paint layers – the first of which tend to be quite free and intuitive, whilst the final layers are more planned and precise.
‘The big paintings have at least 3, and sometimes up to 5, layers of paint, spots and wash before I start the agonising top layer’ says Rachel. ‘I take a deep breathe and make those final strokes, one colour at a time. Some of the flower marks require up to 10 layers to get the paint rich and bright and consistent enough. Finally I paint and print the last few spots, which is really the best bit, the fun bit.’
BLOOM will feature 12 new paintings. All works are now pictured on the TDF Collect website, and we are accepting pre-sales for the show via email. All enquiries please email lisa@thedesignfiles.net – thank you!
BLOOM by Rachel Castle
26th November – 2nd December 2015
TDF Collect
14 Little Oxford st
Collingwood, VIC
Opening drinks – Thursday 26 November from 6.00pm to 8.00pm.
TDF Collect is sponsored by Dulux, The Drinks List, Alhambra Cervezas and CAPI. All are welcome to join us for a drink on Thursday 26th November to celebrate the opening of Rachel’s show.
