Rachel Byles

About me
I was brought up on a dairy farm on the fringes of Exmoor so the farmed landscape of the West Country is embedded in my mind’s eye. I’ve lived here all my life, for many years in Devon and now in West Somereset.
I studied at Exeter College of Art and Design (sadly long since disbanded) in the early 1980’s and then, in the following years, raised a family and a business alongside my late husband Robert. Endeavouring to maintain a creative output has been rather stop and start but my “eye” is never unengaged with my surroundings. Following a long fallow period, the last few years have been ones where I have picked up the pencil and brush again, looking to re-kindle and re-make a creative expression.
Inspiration
There are times of year where the light and the landscape together offer an abundance of motivation – in particular, I enjoy what the low sun of the autumn and winter reveals. Most often the subject for paintings and drawings will be gleaned from a familiar location, somewhere I have walked or driven past many times, perhaps for many years. I work from photographs as I’m always looking for a cast of the light which will most likely be fleeting. But once a work is underway it somehow often begins to inform itself - as I have that remembered imprint from a longstanding familiarity.
Exhibiting
Previously
Works in group and open exhibitions at:
Mabon Fine Art Gallery, Crewkern
The Lynda Cotton Gallery, Watchet
The Foyer of the Brewhouse Theatre, Taunton
The Hot Bath Gallery, Bath
and a solo show at the café of The Queens's Theatre, Barnstaple​
and more recently...
selected for the spring 2024 Open Exhibition at the Burton Gallery, Bideford
selected for the 2024 Black Swan Arts Open, Frome
a work included in the 2024 Evolver Magazine Prize top 50 exhibition
selected for the 2024 South West Academy of Fine & Applied Artists Open Exhibition, Sidmouth
selected for the 2025 Society of Graphic Fine Art Open, Mall Galleries, London
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