Rachel Catlett
Elkhorn, WI
Painter and Farmer, raising sheep and grass in SE Wisconsin on Brown Dog Farm
MessageRachel Catlett is an artist and a shepherd, living and working on a small regenerative sheep farm in Sugar Creek, Wisconsin. Raised as a Navy junior, she grew up moving regularly across the US and traveling overseas. After graduating high school, she accepted a scholarship at the Meadows School of Fine Art at Southern Methodist University. Upon graduating with a BFA in Painting, she went on to Colorado State University where she received her MFA in Printmaking She then went on to a 30 year career in ornamental horticulture, beginning at the Chicago Botanic Garden and continuing on as a professional gardener in the landscape design and installation field. Inspired by a lifelong desire to return to her family's rural heritage as ranchers, she pursued her interest in regenerative agriculture.She and her husband Ed, purchased Brown Dog Farm in 2016. She raises heritage breed sheep and goats for wool and meat, rotationally grazes livestock to build soil and sequester carbon. Her artwork tells the story of rural life and the work of ranchers and farmers.
She has continued her painting practice through multiple careers and shows regionally in the Midwest. She accepts commissions, and maintains her studio practice in her farm studio. She enjoys teaching painting and drawing in her rural community, raising her sheep, riding her horse and working with her woodworking husband, restoring their old farmhouse and barns.
Statement
I am a farmer, and I am an artist. My art centers on the relationship between the farm and the farmer, the land, and our connection to it. I am motivated by what it means to be a steward. Stewardship of the environment is central to regenerative farming practices. I am on a journey to become a regenerative grass farmer. My paintings are about this story.
Telling the stories of other farmers and ranchers is a way of connecting all of our efforts and sending them out into the world. Society at large needs to see this work, understand its value, and experience the beauty it creates in the environment. Agriculture and rural life has been de valued and misunderstood, I aim to change that through these paintings. This life is not an idealized cliche, it is full of life giving and affirming hard work, reliant on creative and innovative people dedicated to stewardship.
I am infatuated by the sensual quality of oil paint and capturing gesture in brushstrokes. I love the physicality, immediacy, and fluidity of marks for the sake of marks. My aim is to make paintings that create tension and balance between marks that describe and marks that celebrate themselves. I work from life, from notes and photographs and from memories.
For me, paintings are visual narratives. I am interested in how we keep our personal histories, how we remember, and how we carry each other both forward and backward, in our stories, from the past and into the future.
Powered by Artwork Archive