Rachael Errington is a visual artist living, working and exhibiting in both New Zealand and Australia. She has been showing her paintings professionally for over 20 years, and has had 40 major solo exhibitions to date.

Rachael grew up living in the middle of an English wood, where she and her brother spent most of their time making dens and treehouses. It is undoubtedly this experience that created her fascination with painting trees. Her work is inspired by colours in nature and the way light filters through flora, creating emotive connections for the viewer, encouraging them to ‘feel’ something that is peaceful, wistful and calming.

It was such a pleasure meeting the wonderfully vivacious Rachael. Her positive outlook on life and her approach to her art business and painting practice is really inspiring. She has some great tips for artists and valuable insights for us all after experiencing a traumatic health event in 2020. 

Rachel goes into fascinating depth about her painting practice: how she paints her entire canvas black before starting a painting; how her underpainting becomes a simple landscape with a light point which are beautiful in themselves; how she creates the sculptural elements in her trees; how she adds in the light rays and mists at the end and why she loves to paint big.

You can see her current solo show Memoirs from Nature on now at Art Bay Gallery in Queenstown, running from June 19th - July 3rd 2024.

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Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!

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