Rachel is a self-taught sculptor with an international client base. Having originally trained as a painter, she subsequently undertook further training as a restorer of art and antiquities. Informed by an admiration for the rich diversity of life, she continually experiments with new ways of working and increasingly endeavours to use natural materials: metals, clay and earth pigments. Paints are created from scratch and natural finishes, such as gold leaf, are employed. Her sculpture ranges in size from a few centimetres to large, life-sized beast: two of the latter are in the permanent collection at Hergest Croft Gardens.

Throughout her work’s diversity of media and form, the common denominator is an invitation to empathise or engage with another species: paintings such as In Absentia, which reference the catastrophic decline and loss of species; her ceramic hybrid bird-doll figures allude to shamanic head-dresses used to conjure the unique energy of the creature represented.

Classical mythologies are often at the root of her works, though not literally interpreted. The painting Twelve Disobedient Servants is based on the biblical story of Revelations, and has been given an alternative ending.