Little Black Book of Art

Rachel Phillips is an artist I came across 3 years ago while hunting for talent at the end of year MA show at Chelsea College of Art in London.

She is a chronicler of modern life who sees the absurd in the everyday, capturing and rendering it in a variety of different medias. However, it was her ‘Shrigley-esque’, small scale, child-like drawings, and hilarious hand-rendered texts that initially caught my attention.

Like David Shrigley, Rachel’s vignettes capture an odd viewpoint of the world and finds comedy in flat depictions of the inconsequential and the bizarre. They are also characterised by a deliberately mischievous technique, thus adding comic effect.

Not all her work is light-hearted. Some of Rachel’s more recent pieces use subject matter that can be quite uncomfortable, dark even, though it is tinged with a certain lightness of touch probably a result of the medium or the simplistic style she uses. Rachel also reveals something of herself in the pieces she creates – her own voice is very much present in her artwork and gives the viewer an insight into who she IS.

Reoccurring themes and thoughts pervade her story telling and her love of the Arsenal is one of them. This is where Rachel and David Shrigley differ. He says, ”Football and art shouldn’t mix as far as I’m concerned. Football is my recreation, it’s everything that art isn’t”.

Rachel’s interest in literature is also clear to see in her distinctive form of narrative which recalls the nonsensical and anarchic writing of famous poets such as Spike Milligan and Ivor Cutler.

What I particularly love about Rachel’s drawings and statements, is that she draws in the most immediate, simplistic way in order to communicate the things she wants to communicate – namely her deadpan humour. It is true that more often than not, I like to be moved by a beautiful piece of art, but it’s not often that I view art and it makes me laugh, and this work doesn’t just make me laugh, it makes me guffaw.

Little Black Book of Art interviews Rachel to find out more…

Tell us a bit about yourself…. Who are you?
My name is Rachel Phillips although in the past I have adopted the name of Rachel Dubois, just because I thought it might be fun – in hindsight it was silly because people just got confused. I was born in Norfolk and went to school in Norwich. I travelled around quite a bit when I left school at 16 and worked in London and Newcastle in a variety of jobs from bars to offices. After 10 years of wanderlust I went to university and read Law, but ended up not liking law and becoming a stockbroker for 15 years. One day I decided I didn’t want to be a stockbroker anymore and went off to art school.

Home?…
Is now a cottage in the countryside in South Norfolk.

What do you do?
I have a studio space in the cottage. However, my favourite spot for working is by the stove in the kitchen. The studio tends to get ignored. Wherever I am working I am surrounded by scrapbooks, cuttings, newspapers and drawings and pens.

We met when I discovered your work at an end of year degree show at Chelsea College of Art; did you study with a view to a professional career?
Not at first. As an undergraduate when I started the course I didn’t think I would ever get to a point where I could ever contemplate being a professional artist. However by the time I arrived at Chelsea to do my Masters all that changed.

You use a variety of mediums in your work as well as the written word – which medium do you prefer working with best?
I do not really separate the two when I am working. However, when I am drawing I particularly like using biros because of their immediacy. I also like coloured pencils and to a lesser extent these days, felt-tip pens. For text work I sometimes like to use an old portable typewriter given to me by an elderly lady in Norwich who said her husband used it for filing his stories when he was a Fleet Street reporter in the 1930s.

I like the fact that you use the written word in art because I think words are just as powerful as an image, and words can be beautiful as well – how do you explain the written word in the art you create and what impact do you want it to have?
It took me some years before I felt confident enough to express myself in words in art because I was pre-conditioned to believe that only painting could be art. I spent the whole of my Foundation year painting large canvases and attending life classes. Later, when I started drawing and experimenting and doodling with pens and including words in my work I suddenly felt a lot happier with what I was doing and it seemed the natural thing to do. However, my work is quite autobiographical so I sometimes used to find it difficult to express myself where everybody could ‘see’ me and I was aware that even at art school some people did not like what I was doing. Humour started to creep in and people were stopping to look at and it was making them laugh. I started to feel a lot happier about exploring my own feelings and felt a lot easier about it when I reached this stage and less sensitive to what people thought. I know from talking to people that everybody gets different things from my work. Some find it humorous and that is what they will always look for from it. Some see it as purely autobiographical and that is what they are looking for. I just hope that if it is something I found interesting then others will find it interesting too.

Favourite piece of art you have made?
My favourite piece is still “He saw Ikea in the distance and he knew everything would be alright”. I did this in 2005 or 2006 and it has now been sold to an American collector who saw it when she was studying in England. She thought it summed up a certain British way of life which is exactly the way I saw it and why I did it. I was happy to sell it to her.

When did you first become interested in art?
I became interested in art when I was about 13 and a teacher at school introduced us to the work of L S Lowry. I still love Lowry’s paintings and drawings. My mother also used to take me to galleries.

How does making art make you feel?
I suppose it just makes me feel that I am being me and that is about the best thing it could do.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
To be perfectly honest I cannot recall anybody giving me a good piece of advice,  mostly people are ready to put you down and tell you what you shouldn’t be doing and don’t do this and don’t do that. I tend to ignore all advice.

(NB: Rachel’s art also asks questions about the nature of contemporary art and its audience -  this drawing is clearly a reference to world-renowned art dealer Jay Jopling)

Where did you last go on holiday?
I am just back from a trip to Morocco. It wasn’t exactly a holiday but more of a house party with lots of drumming and dancing. I have a Moroccan friend who teaches drumming and I ended up at a house on the other side of the Atlas Mountains with him and 14 other people. It was quite an experience.

What makes you laugh?
Watching people in galleries not daring to react to what they are looking at because they are frightened about what people will think of them.

What makes you cry?
Arsenal not winning.

What are you reading?
Paul Theroux’s ‘Riding The Iron Rooster’, the story of his rail journey through China. I love Paul’s writing style. The book is almost 500 pages long but I know it almost off by heart. I dip into it all the time and took it to Morocco with me.

Loving?…
If you mean who am I loving, it has to be my partner, Pierre, who I have been with for over 20 years. He is a beautiful and caring man who gives me freedom to do what I want.

What wouldn’t you do without?
My notebook and pen.

Your finest moment?
I haven’t had it yet.

Where do you go to be alone?
I don’t really need to go anywhere to be alone because I am alone in my cottage a lot of the time.  However if I really feel the need to get away then I go to Paris.

The most interesting person you have ever met?
Oh, this is a difficult one. I met Carol Ann Duffy recently and I said “watcha Carol” and she said “watcha Rachel” and that was all so she doesn’t really count. I would like to meet Slavoj Zizek because he seems to know about or has written about anything and everything and Arsene Wenger because he is so much more than just a football coach and I am always fantasizing  about having lunch with him. I am working on it.

Sum up your life in three words…
No textiles please.

Have you a secret vice?
Reading the Thomas Cook European Train Timetable in bed.

What keeps you alive?
Being endlessly curious.

What role does the artist have in society?
Oh, to change people’s view of the inevitable I hope. To lighten the load of everyday life and to show people that there do not have to be rules and it is all right to enjoy. It cannot change things but it can help.

How do you get inspired?
An obsession with what is going on around me. An obsession with people and a desire to communicate.

Who first influenced you artistically?
Well if you go back to when I was a teenager it has to be L S Lowry and his stick figures as mentioned above. After that it was Bruce Nauman when I first discovered his work when I was a student and then Richard Prince and his jokes.

What have you learned from another artist lately?
I did some video work when I was at Chelsea and have recently discovered the work of Kalup Linzy where he takes multiple roles in his films which is something I have experimented with in the past.

What’s new for next year and where do you see things going in the future?
I have always had a yearning to act so I am joining up with a drama teacher for some sessions after Christmas. But whatever happens I will be producing some new drawings and text and hopefully selling more of my work.

Visit Rachel’s blog at: www.racheldubois.blogspot.com which she writes under the character of Ruby McMahon or visit her website at http://www.racheldubois.com/whatsnew.htm