Rachel Mercer paints everyday public life. Her subjects are the people who fill shared spaces, in shopping centres, playgrounds, streets and crowds. In her own words, she paints figures in dynamic, sometimes contorted positions, captured in motion as they move through the space, meeting the world and each other. She works from observation, making quick drawings and watercolours from life and building larger paintings from them in the studio, where the surface is layered, scraped and scratched in an attempt to find the image on the canvas.
Drawing is the foundation of everything she makes. The drawings and watercolours she takes from life feed the larger studio paintings, worked up with memory and imagination. Fluidity, movement and the observed world are the constants.
Her work has been shown widely in London and beyond. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Green & Stone, London, in 2024, Wells Contemporary at Wells Cathedral, and the New English Art Club annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries, for which she was shortlisted in 2023. She has been shortlisted for the Waverton Art Prize and has won the Hampstead Art Society Prize, and her group exhibition This is Where We Meet at Carousel was named a Guardian exhibition of the week. She has held residencies awarded by the Royal Drawing School, including at Borgo Pignano in Italy, at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, and a two month residency in Chengdu, China.
Mercer studied at Cardiff, graduating with First Class Honours, before completing The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School, where she now teaches. From 2014 to 2018 she co-ran Mercer Chance Gallery in Hoxton, showing emerging artists, so she has worked on both sides of the studio wall, as a painter and as the person selecting and presenting the work of others. What she brings to ESOP is drawing from life as the root of painting, and the discipline of building sustained work from sustained looking.
Rachel Mercer lives and works in London. Foundation Diploma and BA (First Class Honours), Cardiff Metropolitan University; The Drawing Year, Royal Drawing School.
Education
2013 Postgraduate Diploma, The Drawing Year, Royal Drawing School, London
2012 BA Fine Art (First Class Honours), Cardiff Metropolitan University
2008 Foundation Diploma (Distinction), Cardiff Metropolitan University
Solo Shows
2024 In The Cities Life is Smaller, The Gallery at Green & Stone, London
2020 Inside Out, works on paper, Ramsgate
Selected Two Person and Group Shows
2024 Wells Contemporary, Wells Cathedral
2024 Summer Exhibition, Hampstead Art Society, London
2024 Summer Exhibition, Green & Stone, London
2023 NEAC Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
2023 Zimmer Stuart Gallery at King Edward VII’s Hospital, London
2022 Bread and Games, three person show, Aleph Contemporary, London
2022 As it was, As it will be = As it is, five person show, Fitzrovia Gallery, London
2021 Bow Open, Nunnery Gallery, London
2021 Within Without, two person show, Crypt Gallery, London
2021 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize, Coventry Cathedral
2020 This is Where We Meet, Carousel Gallery, London
2019 Fresh Eyes, San Mei Gallery, London
2019 Fresh Eyes, Yiie Gallery, Chengdu, China
2019 Group Exhibition, Mandell’s Gallery, Norwich
2018 Babes in the Orchard, Mercer Chance Gallery, London
2018 Through the Looking Glass: Contemporary Self Portraits, Mercer Chance Gallery, London
2017 Two person show with Enya Lachman-Curl, Mercer Chance Gallery, London
2013 Christie’s, London (The Drawing Year)
Awards and Residencies
2024 Residency at Borgo Pignano, Italy, awarded by the Royal Drawing School and the Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman foundation
2023 Shortlisted, New English Art Club (NEAC) Prize
2022 Residency at Dumfries House, Ayrshire, awarded by the Royal Drawing School
2022 Prize winner, Hampstead Art Society Prize
2022 Shortlisted, Waverton Art Prize
2021 Shortlisted, Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize
2019 Two month residency, Chengdu, China, awarded by the Royal Drawing School and Elm Education, with San Mei Gallery, London
2015 Artist in Residence, North London Collegiate School
Representation
Vivienne Roberts Projects, London. Also shows online with Rise Art.
CollectionsThe Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman collection, and private collections.