Rachel Bess (born c. 1979) is an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...

working out of

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the o ...

Background

She got her BFA in painting from the Honors College at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in t ...

in 2001. She taught life drawing and painting at New School for the Arts and Academics in Tempe, Arizona from 2002 to 2007 before leaving academia to paint full-time. Bess is known for her highly realistic, sometimes surrealistic, baroque-style oil paintings on panel. Her work has drawn comparisons to that of the

Dutch Masters Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...

, as well as to certain subgenres of the lowbrow art movement. In 2014 she was awarded the Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Forum Artist Award (the Contemporary Forum is a support organization of the

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

). Bess prepared a series of paintings to exhibit at Art Miami 2016. They consisted of paintings of rotting fruit, a subject she'd been working on for several years, which are a comment on the human body, aging, and death. In December 2016 she was awarded a $5000 grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, which she intended to use to support four months of research into underpainting. Currently Bess helps to organize the Phoenix branch of

Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School is both a burlesque cabaret and life drawing event originating in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the Lucky Cat. Dr. Sketchy's was founded in New York City in 2005, by illustrator and former artist's model Molly Crabapple ...

, and writes/illustrates a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...

titled, "Fighting Death Through Reanimation". Bess was represented by Perihelion Arts in downtown Phoenix, prior to representation by the Lisa Sette Gallery in Phoenix. She is also an expert in rearing urban chickens and has published a handbook on the subject, "Fowl Play".

Notable exhibitions

Selected solo shows ''2015.'' Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona ''2014.'' Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona ''2012.'' Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona ''2011.'' Perihelion Arts, Phoenix, Arizona ''2010'' * Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, California * Perihelion Arts, Phoenix, Arizona * Rodger LaPelle Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ''2009.'' * Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, California * Perihelion Arts, Phoenix, Arizona ''2008.'' Cattle Track Arts Compound, Scottsdale, Arizona ''2007.'' Trinity Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. May. ''2006.'' Modified Arts, Phoenix, Arizona. November–December. ''2005.'' Casa Grande Museum of Art, Casa Grande, Arizona. January–February.

References

External links

Official Site

Fighting Death through Reanimation comic

Rachel Bess - Surreal Art Collective
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bess, Rachel American women painters Living people Year of birth uncertain Painters from Phoenix, Arizona 1970s births 21st-century American women artists