Rachael McCampbell with a friend’s horse named “June Bug” 2012, Leiper’s Fork, TN

2012 Featured Artist: Rachael McCampbell

“We are delighted to work with such a talented local artist who shares our passion for equestrian art, and look forward to sharing her work with the community,” said Dwight Hall, chairman of the Iroquois Steeplechase Race Committee.

Capturing the awe-inspiring beauty and movement of the horse is a difficult feat, but one that McCampbell does seamlessly. Drawing inspiration from her rural upbringing on a Knoxville, Tennessee farm, she creates by observing subjects in their natural habitat and focuses on highlighting both the motion and stillness of the wildlife she paints. McCampbell says, “For me, the horses I have painted symbolize the wildness in ourselves that we have perhaps lost and are trying to recapture.”

She is known for her tactile approach to painting that involves sanding layers of paint off, then repainting them until the story she envisions gets told. “I take an emotive, action-based approach to the application of paint, working as much with splashes and drips of color as with carefully rendered line,” said McCampbell. “My interest in drawing also plays into my paintings. As I like to show the ‘artist’s hand,’ I often work backwards, drawing on top of a finished painting and exposing the line work that provided the painting’s original armature.”

McCampbell studied fine art at the University of Georgia, worked in Florence, Italy under fashion designer Emilio Pucci, then studied at Christie’s in London before beginning her art career on both coasts.

After years of urban living in New York, Europe and Los Angeles, McCampbell moved to the hamlet of Leiper’s Fork,Tennessee in 2009 to reconnect with the nature that inspires her work. She has garnered local success most recently with exhibits at the Tinney Contemporary Gallery, Nashville Parthenon Museum and she has exhibited and sold her art to the Tennessee State Museum. She also shows nationally and is collected internationally.

The 2012 featured painting titled Flight will be revealed at the spring luncheon on March 26 and auctioned at the Jockey Club Party on May 11.