Rachel DeBoard is a painter who lives in Highland Park, MI. Originally from Kailua, HI, she currently works at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, where she runs the Imaging Center Risograph program. Her work draws on psychological portraiture, socially awkward encounters, existentialism, and the creaturely. Her favorite books include Howards End, by E.M. Foster, Middlemarch by George Eliot, and Colorless Tzukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami.

My current work explores liminal transitions, using cloistered gardens and the wilderness as polarizing forces. I contrast the planned with the uncanny, reflecting on how repetition and habit are ripped open by an interruption or trauma. I use monastic gardens and nature as a visual analogy; the English garden has always represented man’s struggle to balance control and nature. Animals are often instigators of chaos and simultaneously display creaturely triumph. They move amicably between wild or unknown spaces and societal frameworks, making them perfect guides through comfortless change or turmoil.

My work is influenced by process and my surroundings. I make abstracted figures and animals on canvas and linen, using a variety of paint, binders, and drawing tools. Materiality influences my work, and this results in a lot of texture.

I have a studio where I make my work in Detroit.