‘I grew up in a small country town near the Warrumbungle National Park. Sitting around campfires, riding down dirt roads and climbing trees to pick mulberries in my back yard opened my eyes to the beauty in nature. The environment I grew up in allowed me to interact with wildlife and appreciate the tranquility of nature. Many of my characters reflect this sense of solitude, a connection to their surroundings and the creatures that inhabit that environment.’

Rachel Favelle is a Pop-Surreal artist and illustrator. Her work is inspired by the Australian flora and fauna she experienced while growing up in the country. Her fantastical imaginings emerge in meticulously rendered oil paintings, drawings and sculptures, that whisk the viewers away to otherworldly places. Rachel’s work highlights the beauty of nature and the importance of childhood imagination while also providing pressing commentary on wildlife preservation.

Rachel has a profound love of art that unfolded itself at an early age. Growing up in country Australia; surrounded by rugged mountain ranges, dusty roads and watering holes, Rachel spent most of her childhood exploring and making meaning of her environment. Coupled with the creative influence of her mother, who was an avid oil painter, she quickly became fascinated by the potential for art to express those intangible experiences and narratives that unfolded in her mind as a child.

In 2000, Rachel pursued an academic career in art education, completing a Bachelor in Secondary Art Education at Griffith University. Rachel’s creative art endeavours became oriented towards guiding and inspiring young people in the art industry and to this day she remains a practicing visual arts teacher. However, it was her earlier studies during her Bachelor of Visual Arts in Illustration that kept calling her back years later for the need to tell her own stories and revisit that inquisitive mindset of childhood.

Consequently, in 2010 Rachel decided to focus on her own creative practice and since that time her artwork has been shown across Australia as well as international galleries in Portugal and the United States. She released her first children’s picture book, The Bear Hug in 2018 and in 2019 Rachel showcased her international solo show in Chicago titled, Out of the Velvet Blackness, which explored childhood creativity and its decline in adulthood. Using oils as her medium, Rachel’s richly coloured and fanciful worlds, inhabited by quirky characters, imbue the works with narrative and a contemplative stillness. Early works were inspired by antiquated childhood toys, surreal environments and puns but as her work has developed it has become underpinned by a deeper exploration into the connection between environmental nature and human nature.

Rachel is currently preparing a body of work for future online auctions, expanding upon the work she previously created in her Stranger Land series. She will continue to support aspiring artists in the coming year through the release of several online painting courses and her mentorship within the Mastrius program.