Rachel Dein
Rachel Dein specialises in creating botanical art in both plaster and concrete. Rachel’s work evolved from the old tradition of nature printing, the technique of using the surface of a natural object to make a print.
Rachel makes plaster casts of plants and flowers that record all their texture, pattern, and delicacy in exquisite details. Her composition can be as simple as a single stem or as complex as a field of wildflowers, leaves, and grasses. Pendulous bleeding hearts, curly fiddleheads of ferns, and wispy poppies are some of her favorite flowers to cast.
In the light-filled attic studio at her north London home, the artist gently peels back a clay mould to reveal a plaster cast of flowers in amazing details and extraordinary beauty. There is a memorial as well as a celebratory quality to these simple tiles and panels, for they preserve a fleeting moment of glory long after the plants have faded and died. They reflect Rachel’s interest in nature, its transience and tenacity.