Rachel MacFarlane

At the core of Rachel MacFarlane’s uncanny, richly hued works is a lament for the loss of places, especially landscapes, and the process of manufacturing new ones through painting. While her paintings may seem fantastical, they are filtered through the artist’s memories of real places and expeditions to various sites. MacFarlane’s works expand on the long-standing genre of landscape painting to account for current ecological pressure on natural spaces. To begin her studio process, MacFarlane constructs paper maquettes within small, shallow boxes to initiate each painting. The paintings then evolve into speculative fiction, illustrating the changing landscape or envisioning its potential future—one taken over by flora, fabricated and rebuilt, and full of unknown phenomena.

Submitted by Hollis Taggart