Rachel Waldron

Artist Statement

I make art that pleases me, but I also hope that it finds resonance with other people's imagination. I've always been compelled to make images of the human form. I started out in dance, and immediately found that movement and sound were a way to allow my person to feel emotions that were too difficult to express with words. It was natural. As I grew as an artist, I explored making images with my hands. Not as natural, it took time to learn how to manipulate medium and achieve something that satisfied my vision. My figures move on the page, and the drawing itself is gestural. I’ve kept the connection between dance and two dimensional art by looking for ways to represent a hand that touches, or a gaze that shifts. After many years, I finally feel more at home with the process of creation in the visual arts.

At the moment my pieces are works on paper, incorporating a photo transfer technique combined with drawing, painting, and printing. I've pulled from a rich source of family photos, taken by my grandfather in the 1950-60-70's. I've added my own layers representing our present family, trying to explore the deep connection between past and present. My goal was to understand the nature of our overlapping lives and stories. Each generation not starting at the end of the previous, but receiving the hand-off somewhere in the middle. Walking the road together for a while before adding people and allowing some to fall away.