Fascinated by the human stories embedded in landscape and how those are recorded in places as well as maps both old and current.
My starting point is often an exploration of a landscape or journey through it. This is my inspiration. I draw, walk and photograph. Both walking and drawing are methods of recording and understanding. Memory is embodied and experiential. The work then develops through further drawing, paint, print, collage and installation or participatory work with political, environmental or social comment.
When printmaking, I love the immediacy of monotype, as well as the processes involved in Lithography.
After participating in Monica Ross's Act of Memory in February 2012, the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights found its way to the heart of my own work: the viewer participated by transcribing the article which held the most resonance to them. The text can be found in recent prints, in work on newsprint on board, and my Please Participate project was a direct response to that experience. See the blog for more about this.
Now, my fascination, focus and interest is in the textile manufacturing history of the NW of England where I now live.
All work and content on this site is copyright Rachel Beard