Open Studios July 2023

Having open studios fall just after the end of term, at a time when I'm re defining my direction has been very useful. Although there are commercial implications involved with showing/selling my work (and the audience likely to engage with it) it's nevertheless been a good opportunity for me to push the experiments I've been working on further.

Going through a very large pile of paintings was useful in terms of assessing what I felt was working and what wasn't...

Once I'd organised some piles, I selected some paintings that I felt had areas that were effective or worked but other areas that didn't.

What happens if I chop them up? What potential do they have in different shapes and compositions?

Some of these pieces inevitably work better than others - but I do like the unknown experience of cutting the paper and seeing what appears. It chimes well with the ideas surrounding automatism, where one allows the form to take shape without conscious through. While I'm thinking of the ideas of journeys and paths as I'm putting paint on paper - by subsequently de constructing it I'm allowing a path to reveal itself which I find really exciting.

July 20th

Having now completed two weekends of open studios I'm really pleased with the success of it (I sold 15 paintings) but more, found it a really useful process in terms of focussing on what work was going well and could be developed. Hearing feedback and talking to visitors has helped me gain a sense of people's understanding and perception of my work.

I also evaluated the 'statement' I have been developing, chiefly to help me distill the direction I'm taking for the MA but also just because on a personal level it's useful, in anticipation of hopefully showing more work publicly.

This is the statement I pinned to the wall in the studio:

Rachel Thompson is a Cambridge based artist currently studying towards an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. In her work Rachel explores how the process of painting connects with voice, feeling and human experience - and how people today and through history have used repetition and ritual to seek both existential and emotional clarity. Rachel questions why we feel compelled to repeat visits to certain places, memories, and actions that anchor and ground us, and how this can be represented in abstract forms on paper through drawing and painting methods that are inherently repetitive and somatic.

Images of pilgrimage, subterranean energy and the rhythm of the solstices permeate Rachel’s work – as she reflects on how these ancient sites connect us with past civilisations and lead us to paths that navigate the imprints of our own memories.

I also placed a quote from Robert Macfarlance on the wall, as his book 'The Old Ways' has been influencing my thoughts surrounding tracks and paths:

"The imagination cannot help but pursue a line in the land - onwards in space, but also backwards in time to the histories of a routeand its previous followers. As I walk paths I often wonder about their origins, the impulses that have led to their creation, the records they yield of customary journeys, and the secrets they keep of adventures, meetings and departures."

Some images of the unframed original prints I packaged for sale. I've added some key words to each one to indicate some of the thought processes behind them:

Subterranean energy; life force under the earth; buried within ourselves; energy suspended.

Gold lines encircling a group; shared experience; huddle

Lines, tracks, marks in the ground.

Feeling of isolation making a visit to a painful place

Circular walk; repeated visits; making marks; moving together

Under and over, the regenerative conversation between the past and the present.

Marking the solstice, punctuating the year, finding comfort in repetition and feelings of hope.

Below the mountains, energy held within