Rachel Mercer 1990
Rachel Mercer captures moments of everyday life through observational drawings and watercolours, which inform her larger studio paintings
Mercer captures moments of everyday life through observational drawings and watercolors, which inform her larger studio paintings. These works are reworked and supplemented with memory and imagination. The openness of Mercer’s brushstrokes conveys movement and ambiguity, creating an interplay between the figure and their environment, the figures sometimes merge or dissolve into their surroundings. For Mercer the image eventually finds its way onto the canvas through multiple reworkings and the scraping and wiping of paint.
Mercer is a painter from Cambridgeshire, now based in London. She studied at Cardiff School of Art and Design (2012) and is an alumnus of The Royal Drawing School (2013). Mercer exhibits her work regularly in solo and group exhibitions in the UK. Stand-out exhibitions include Christie's London (2013), Mercer Chance Gallery and Mandell's Gallery (2018), San Mei Gallery (2019), Fitzrovia Gallery (2022) and Aleph Contemporary (2023). In 2019 she was awarded a two-month residency in China. In 2021 she was Shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard She has had work purchased for the Royal Collection by King Charles and the Michael Moritz, Hariette Heyman collection.