Aqua Eruption

Resin and mixed media · 60 x 70cm · framed

Rachel has always felt a strong pull towards texture and colour, and the geothermal parks she visited on her travels gave her both in abundance. This painting is her response to them: not a picture of one place, but the sensation of standing on ground that's alive, shifting and bubbling just beneath your feet.

A cool band of steely blue sits across the top like a still sky. Beneath it, a wavy ridge of deep navy rises and falls like a distant skyline. Then the warmth arrives: bands of terracotta and soft salmon pink, threaded with swirls of cream, sage, lilac-grey and butter yellow, all flowing into one another. At the bottom, a glossy mass of rich chocolate brown and deep red wells up in rounded, bubbling cells, like a mud pool on the point of erupting, before spilling onto a pale, creamy ground.

As with all of Rachel's resin work, it looks free and fluid but was carefully planned. Resin gives her just four minutes before it sets as hard as rock, so every colour and every pour had to be decided in advance. The result is a high-gloss surface with real depth, especially in that dark, bubbling centre.

It's a painting of contrasts: cool and calm above, warm and restless below. Framed and ready to hang, it would bring drama to a living room, a study, or a dining room with warm, earthy tones.