Rachel Wegrzyn is a multidisciplinary designer, in the fields of art, architecture, and design. She is currently living in Tāmaki Makaurau and graduated from The University of Auckland in 2018 with a Masters of Architecture (Hons).

Rachel’s work is a necessary form of art therapy, reflecting the various states of her mental health. In particular, the dark and chasmic forms of depression that she lives with and has visualised as black volcanic masses.

Her work is sculptural and atmospheric, with a heavy use of black. She manipulates wet mixed media to create emotive landscapes. She finds the process of making her works with bare hands meditative. Slow motion recordings capture the aftermath of this process, showing ink stained skin, and plaster flaking from her palms and fingers.

Her ‘Dormant’ series was created by blending plasters, ground lava stone (basalt), Japanese ink, and calligraphy paper; which is then applied to canvas in portrait format by hand. As the medium begins to dry she uses her fingers, volcanic stones and heat to manipulate, sculpt, and texture the surface.