Rachel Ricketts rbsa

The two works In Absentia: Bees and In Absentia: Butterflies are responses to the increasing pressures on Earth’s fragile ecosystem.

The two canine studies are commissioned works.

The gallery and studio are open occasionally for events, by invitation only.

The Gallery at Studio 54 showcases a range of current work by Rachel Ricketts together with a carefully curated selection of work by other artists. The Gallery is currently showing paintings by Wayne Summers (@wsummers555 | waynesummers.wordpress.com) and sculptural objets de vertu by Jessica Townsend (@gristlybare)

The conception of Fly was initiated by local stories about the ghost of Black Vaughan and the Hound of the Baskervilles which Conan Doyle, when the tale was related to him, was inspired to write. Notable mythologies involving hounds in the region go back to the Mabinogi and are still raising the hairs on our necks to this day.

Fly carries forward none of the darker, historic connotations of the Hound stories, reference is made to Black Vaughan only: he bears a talisman in the form of a snuffbox with fly motif (Vaughan’s ghost was reduced to the size of a fly and interred in a snuffbox) invoking the power of positive transformation. Fly represents the spirit of an enthusiastic walking companion, ideally suited to his location in Kington, where the bronze is ultimately destined to stand.

Rachel is happy to undertake commissions directly via this website, or through the aegis of Cricket Fine Art, based in London and Hungerford.

Rachel is a self-taught sculptor with an international client base. Having originally trained as a painter, she subsequently undertook further training as a restorer of art and antiquities. Informed by an admiration for the rich diversity of life, she continually experiments with new ways of working and increasingly endeavours to use natural materials: metals, clay and earth pigments. Paints are created from scratch and natural finishes, such as gold leaf, are employed. Her sculpture ranges in size from a few centimetres to large, life-sized beast: two of the latter are in the permanent collection at Hergest Croft Gardens.

Throughout her work’s diversity of media and form, the common denominator is an invitation to empathise or engage with another species: paintings such as In Absentia, which reference the catastrophic decline and loss of species; her ceramic hybrid bird-doll figures allude to shamanic head-dresses used to conjure the unique energy of the creature represented.

Classical mythologies are often at the root of her works, though not literally interpreted. The painting Twelve Disobedient Servants is based on the biblical story of Revelations, and has been given an alternative ending.