Five minutes with an artist: Rachel Rush
Rachel Rush, a self-taught artist from Aotearoa, has struck the local art scene with her incredibly creative and captivating style. Gaining attention for her vivid use of colours and enticing characters, art collectors are creating a fervent demand, attracting a global following of Rush collectors.
Your art has a distinctive, urban energy and a vibrant aesthetic. Can you tell us some key inspirations that shape your art?
My initial inspiration for both sides of my work came from creating the pieces I wanted to see in my home. I’m a self-taught artist, which used to be considered a
bit of a barrier to a career in art, but one which I wear as a badge of honour because I’ve had to do the hard yards over the last 20 or so years teaching myself to create the art that best represents my voice.
Can you walk us through your creative process—how do your ideas evolve from concept to finished piece?
My RUSH graffiti work starts with a blank canvas and a rough concept in my head for creating an abstract background. Colour is always my foremost thought. Then, I need to break up the patterns and add a voice to the piece, usually adding actual words or sentences that appeal to me. My thought is to create the idea of a portion of a wall in the street that has caught your eye and take a ‘snapshot’ of that piece at that particular moment in time. I then pick one of my characters to add and then spend time pushing it all back with overlayers, including collages and stickers, so you have depths of work to work through visually. Once finished, I add a coat of resin to make the colours pop.
Can you share the story and inspiration behind your latest collection, Sugar Rush?
In February, I had an opportunity to take over the SO/ Hotel in Auckland. We held an exhibition that ranged from the downstairs Vault to the fabulous Hi-So rooftop bar. This exhibition resulted in my residency at SO/ and my gallery next door, SO/Gallery at 57 Customs St East. One of the highlights from this was my relationship with the head chef and communications team, Cary and Arnie from Flagstaff Gallery, and my husband and business partner, Graham. We put together a monthly event in the gallery and let our creative imaginations go wild. ‘Sugar Rush’ resulted from one of these meetings where we were challenged to create a series of rooms within the gallery inspired by a particular piece of art, all candy coloured or candy-inspired. People often talk about wanting to touch my work, and on many occasions, believe it or not, they say they want to ‘lick’ the art... truly. Naturally, that led to our edible wall of art, a monster spray-painted block wall with real doughnuts and lollipops attached to the wall that you could pull off and eat. In front of the gallery, I wanted to house small candy-coloured square works with a pop art Warhol theme, so ‘Sugar Rush’ was born.
What sparked your initial journey into the art world, and how has that evolved over time?
I’ve drawn ever since I can remember, just sitting down drawing and colouring in my favourite pictures from books. I was supposed to be an accountant, which would have been a total disaster, but destiny pushed me to a job interview when I was 16 at Kozmik Design, where we hand-painted fabulously bright, fluoro clothing. I loved that job. I was always painting, initially oil-painted landscapes. Once my family had grown, I returned to doing art full-time, and it’s just been an organic process.
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