Rachel Arif AMAFA British, b. 1975

ARTIST STATEMENT

 

Rachel is a Lancashire-born artist, known for her dark and atmospheric seascape and landscape paintings and her melancholic and thought- provoking figurative work. Her weather filled seascapes, portray the relationship between the land, sea, and the forces of nature, closely mirroring the way in which the land and weather can shape our emotions, hopes and aspirations as human beings. Her work is textured and magnetic.

She studied History of Art at Manchester College of Art before developing a successful office-based career within the heart of vibrant Soho. Eventually, she left her corporate life behind as she found the work very boring and soulless and acquired a studio along The River Thames, where she still paints today.

Arif has always been drawn to a darker palette, although she does love colour it’s always damped down and earthed up a bit. Arif thrives on anything that triggers an emotional response, feeling her happiest on a beach, not when the sun is beating down, usually when it’s bleak and windswept. It has been said that her sea and landscape paintings are a dramatized reality of a typical English day, not depressing but somehow hopeful. You won’t find many crimson sunsets or bright yellow suns in her remit.

 

PAINTING STYLE

"I like to paint everyday life situations, the mundane even, such as a sorrowful man, a girl in a cafe or some flowers past their sell by date", Rachel Says. Collectors describe Arif's works (her figurative work in particular) to have an almost antique/vintage feel to them, as though painted in a past era, yet still retaining a contemporary feel.

Arif ‘s chosen medium is oil, she describes the medium as beautiful to work with “like velvet”. She paints intuitively a lot of the time, avoiding getting too bogged down with "correct" place of shadow and light, she likes to keep it relatively naive, if a painting starts to become too finicky and "perfect" she will start again!  Her painting style is constantly evolving (as is the world around her) and she believes that too many artists get caught up in their "style”, …”it's kind of suffocating to not evolve with it and stick to one particular subject.  I'm not into fad art or what's currently fashionable, I try to stay true to myself.”

 

EXHIBITING HISTORY

Several of her pastel drawings and oil paintings have been selected for The Pastel Society, the RBA (Royal Society of British Artists), The SWA (Society of Women Artists), The NEAC (New English Art Club) and The ING Discerning Eye. 

Rachels work has been exhibited at Mall Galleries in London on several occasions and her work is featured in several Interior Design Publications, Lifestyle Edits, Corporate and Hotel Collections including The Hyatt. She exhibits mainly in the UK but has collectors world-wide. She is also an avid animal lover and has donated several works to animal charities, endangered species, conservation and at-risk wild space initiatives.