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BIO
Rachael Burnett has exhibited paintings and drawings in galleries in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Yorkshire. Her work is an exploration of impermanence, beauty and uncertainty. According to Burnett, ‘playing at the threshold between order and chaos is the central practice and theme of my work’.
Burnett studied Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art and graduated with a First Class degree. She went on to win various awards, including the ‘James Cumin Award for Draughtsmanship’ at The Royal Scottish Academy and the ‘Latimer Award for meritorious work by a young Artist’ on two occasions.
ABOUT THE ART
The work explores the forest as sacred space; making the invisible visible through magnifying and elevating the minutia of the hidden worlds and networks that sustain life. I am making a series of intricate drawings which bring together the ecclesiastical architecture found in early renaissance and medieval paintings with biological and scientific drawings of tiny organisms such as fungi, spores and lichens. The three panels on three trees form a Triptych evoking the devotional artwork of religious paintings, but situated not in a Gothic Cathedral, but the transcendental space of the forest, often a place of transformation and discovery in fairytales and mythology. The practical tying of the work to the trees is influenced by pre-Christian pagan rituals; a symbolic way of remembering and returning to a more sustainable and mystical relationship with nature. My hope is to create a contemplative space where both the hidden and invisible aspects of the forest, and our own secret and inner-selves can find expression, illumination and place.