Exploring Rock Pools

Acrylic and plaster on board · 70 x 126cm · framed in a charcoal moulded wooden frame

Crouch down beside a rock pool and the world changes scale entirely. What looked from above like a dark puddle reveals itself as something else altogether: a complete ecosystem with its own hills and valleys, its own creatures and plants, its own particular light and colour and order.

This large painting immerses you in that world completely. Soft sage and mint green forms move and flow across the surface like seaweed in a current, punctuated by tiny dots of coral pink and pale yellow: limpets, anemones, the spotted surfaces of rock. A white daisy anemone opens at the centre. Dark serpentine lines wind through the composition like channels of deeper water. A cascade of white marks spirals through the upper half like foam, or the trail of something moving just below the surface.

Rachel builds the surface with plaster as well as paint, so it has real, raised texture, like rock itself, that catches the light and changes as you move around the room.

This is a painting of extraordinary richness and warmth, full of the particular joy of discovering a world in miniature. Framed in charcoal and ready to hang, it would bring light, movement and a deep sense of the natural world into any room it inhabits.

The closer you look, the more you find.