Rachel Hirabayashi

Rachel does not work from life: her finished works are images or ideas filtered through ‘emotional memory’. She values the imagery, colour, detail, scale and light to which travel has exposed her. Recent series, such as Pioneers, Flood and Gold Town have shown Rachel’s strengths with colour, texture and composition. Fields of luminous colour are held in balance by skyline, horizon line, or fence line, with dark and light working in harmony. Rachel’s technique of layering pigment and washes on the surface evokes a sense of veiled stillness and of timelessness. Each series shares compositional themes and repeated motifs such as early settler’s dwellings, humble churches and stone buildings, water, and – occasionally – goats. Her recent themes include landscapes, settlement within a landscape, and landscapes lost or changed through human land-use. Her palette evokes arid plains, the diverse qualities of light and the forceful yet sinuous nature of water.

Over recent years Rachel has formed a distinctive visual language and her work is admired and collected by locals and international visitors alike. She has won numerous awards and regularly exhibits around the region.

In addition, she has created a fascinating and idiosyncratic garden that she describes as ‘a work in progress’.