Biography

Rachel Perrin is a Melbourne based visual artist with an interest in drawing, painting and portraiture.

After completing high school at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1994 (dance), Perrin spent fourteen years working in the fashion industry and lived in Europe, Asia and Australia during that time. Her time in front of the camera influenced both her aesthetic and artistic process.

Artist statement 

I cannot separate myself from how the people around me feel.

I suppose it is just empathy, a vital tool for life that most of us have to varying degrees, but for me it can be exhausting, an involuntary love-hate experience which I can neither escape nor control.  The tone of a room, the mood of a stranger, of a friend, of anyone… I was drawn to portraiture as a way to transcribe what I absorb, to focus emotional energy and to engage in the very personal artist/sitter relationship.

My work asks the question, ‘Is there an essence of someone that may be captured?’  Through drawing, painting and burning, I aim to tap into a person’s sense of self, so that the end response of the subject to the finished work is as important as my own understanding.

Conceptually I am interested in the sitter’s response to his or her own painted likeness, in the value we still place on the artist’s process, and in how it feels and what it means to the subject to be painted.

Mark making and materiality are important, and I work constantly to find new ways of representing gesturally what I see and feel.  The combinations of mediums used are unique to the sitter: usually oil, ink and charcoal over burning on raw materials.

There is a quiet about my work despite its scale, layering, texture and complexity: and careful contemplation and recognition of the inner sense of being that we all share.

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CV 

2012 – 2016	Diploma of Visual Arts – Latrobe College of Art and Design, 138 Cromwell Street, Collingwood, Melbourne
2015	Painting intensive, David Ralph
2014	Drawing intensive, New York, USA
1993 – 2007	Fashion Model Chadwick Model Management – Melbourne and Sydney ProMod Model Agency – Munich and Hamburg Flash Model Agency – Milan Elite Model Management – Paris Visage Model Agency – Japan

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Exhibitions

2018	Group show NATURE AS SHE Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2017	Solo show BEING HUMAN Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2017	Group show OFF THE KERB 10th ANNIVERSARY SHOW Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2017	Group show DARK HONEY Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2017	Group show YOUTH Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2016	Solo show ADORABLE DELINQUENTS Off the Kerb, Johnston street, Collingwood
2016	Group show HOB Final Show House of Bricks, Budd street, Collingwood
2015	Group show PLASTIC Student gallery Latrobe College of Art and Design, Latrobe St, Melbourne CBD
2015	Solo show THE LIBRARY Student gallery Latrobe College of Art and Design, Latrobe St, Melbourne CBD
2015	Group show COLOUR Student gallery Latrobe College of Art and Design, Cromwell St Collingwood, Melbourne
2015	Group show $2 SHOP Student gallery Latrobe College of Art and Design, Cromwell St Collingwood, Melbourne
2015	Group show BRAVARTO Gallery 314, 314 Church Street, Richmond, Melbourne, Australia

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Prizes

2019	Portia Geach Memorial Award, finalist 2019
2017	Winner PECULIAR PORTRAIT ART PRIZE Fitzroy, Melbourne