Rachel Schwalm

My work is a collision of two worlds, painting and sculpture, but it has its origins in painting and architecture. I have spent a lot of time in Italy looking at how frescoes were executed, and this has inspired the proportions of and scaling-up element in my work. For me, what’s left unsaid is as poignant as what is said. I will whittle and pare the ‘canvas’ down to its minimalist essence, the intention being to leave a door open to the imagination. The pigmented portal, for instance, is almost like a ‘time capsule’, helping peel back the layers and accretions of centuries. It might look minimalist but my work has an old soul. I’m fascinated by minutiae, by the details you isolate on a paving slab or the fragment of paint in a fresco, by worlds within worlds, and that’s why I always create a portal within a portal. Close-up it means nothing but stand back and you start to fill in the picture. There’s also an ambiguity to the inner portals, which appear slightly crater-like, almost like ear-drums, as if they’re listening to something much bigger – the universe perhaps? I like to think of them as light-filled thresholds to other worlds. Artist website under construction