Rachel Wilsey
Seattle, WA
Abstract painter, print maker & collage artist bringing moments of joy to our seasons of darkness
Message
Rachel Wilsey (B. 1980) is an abstract painter, printmaker, and collage artist whose work journeys into the sense-memory of color and light.
Raised in a tiny town at the base of the Rocky Mountains, Rachel’s wild childhood sliding down red rocks and romping through pine forests was equally infused with art in a multicultural home full of artisan crafts from around the world and a large collection of contemporary abstract art. These sense-memories are the well that she draws on in her current painting practice.
Rachel holds a BA from Reed College, where she majored in Economics and Dance. She studied Limón technique alongside experimental multi-media and post-modern dance.
Experimental new-media led her to the newly computer-based tools for graphic design and a career as a graphic designer for over 12 years. Beginning as the Marketing and Graphics Manager for the international mecca of modern dance, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, her design career focused on design for the arts and non-profits.
Now based in Seattle, Rachel’s creative focus is painting with a practice that reflects her creative roots in experimental dance. She approaches the canvas improvisationally and explores kinetically until the work has the textural depth and joyful color resonance that clicks with her sense memory.
Rachel was a member of the Ballard Collective until the summer of 2025, when they lost their building to arson. She is currently a resident artist at Base Camp Studios 2 in Belltown and teaches Movement for Creative Renewal alongside her painting practice.
Statement
Journeying into the Sense-Memory of Color and Light
Through abstract work in acrylic, watercolor, monotype, collage, and mixed media, I create work that brings to life my visceral feelings and memories of light and color from a lifetime of gardening, exploring, and living in the varied natural environments of North America.
Natural light is fluid and constantly changing. Outdoors, away from artificial light, color is in constant motion, as garden writer and deep observer of color, Lorane Edwards Forkner said so well, “This makes color slippery, an ever-changing, almost sentient presence in our environment… colors don’t sit still…[they] flow, bounce, vibrate, or hum.”
I work improvisationally and experimentally, to create vibrant colorscapes with textural body and movement. Exploring until I come to a place where the work has a joyful color resonance that can transport me into the bodily feelings and sense-memory that I am trying to convey.
When I’m able to successfully hit that joyful color and textural resonance, I watch my work draw in viewers, who come close to examine the layers, then enter their own sense-memories from their unique points of view. My work provides a place of calm for viewers to enter the subconscious, free associate, and come out feeling joyful and refreshed or energized by their own memories. Viewers and collectors of my work have told me hundreds of different stories of the journey into memory that my work has taken them on. My paintings are simultaneously deeply personal and fully universal.