Creativity With A Conscience

Inspired by the local wildlife on her doorstep, Four Marks artist Rachel Hudson captures the character with her bold and intriguing illustrations

- Sandra Smith

The challenge of creating images which simultaneously portray simplicity and realism relies on each mark capturing accuracy and atmosphere. The results are pure, unfussy, even childlike in their appeal. But because naïve interpretations are both dependent on, and limited by spotlighting every angle, nuance and characteristic, the job of the artist to reflect authenticity while working to a minimalist approach suggests this style is at least, if not more, tricky to achieve than others.

Well, if this is so, Rachel Hudson shows no sign of pressure. On the contrary, the East Hampshire artist is so in tune with her genre, the notion of her producing anything other than her signature, quirky images defies imagination.

“I’m interested in an animal’s character,” the 44 year old smiles. “I particularly like the work of Charley Harper, a US artist. He said he didn’t count the feathers on a bird, he counted the wings. I’m not interested in minutiae; more shape, movement and behaviour. And I like an underlying sense of humour.”

Rachel’s fascination with her subjects first came to light during infancy. It was at a “tiny” primary school where she adopted a Norwegian teacher’s appreciation of nature and poetry which sat neatly alongside influences at home.

“Although he trained as a scientist, my dad was very artistic, he used to do linocuts. I’ve always loved William Morris wallpaper and fabric designs and my parents often took me to exhibitions. I learned recently that my great-grandmother designed for William Morris. She lived to the age of 103 and in the last few years shared little gems of information.”