Rachel Maxi

Biography

Rachel Maxi is a Seattle-based artist working across painting, sculpture, and mixed media. For the first two decades of her career, she focused on representational paintings of urban landscapes and still life—what she described as “the diary of the mundane,” grounded in observation, composition, and light.

A life-altering event in 2015 marked a profound shift in her practice. In its wake, Maxi turned toward a more intuitive, materially driven language, shaped in part by residencies from Morocco to the American West. Her work now unfolds as a layered, introspective exploration of memory, place, and perception—where experience is distilled into form.

Rooted in daily walks and direct engagement with her surroundings, she gathers fragments—color, light, and found materials—which move into the studio. There, painting and constructed elements converge, guided by a responsive process of balance and change. The resulting works investigate how we inhabit and remember space, producing compositions that feel both familiar and elusive.

Maxi was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and educated at Xavier University. She has lived and worked in Seattle since 1990, exhibiting widely throughout the Pacific Northwest, including at the Seattle Art Museum and Tacoma Art Museum. Her work is held in public and private collections.

Artist Statement

My work references the mystical aspects of nature, landscapes, and built environments. I am interested in how we inhabit and move in these spaces, and how we remember them—culturally, spiritually, and historically. I think too about emotional memory; how a place made us feel when we first encountered it, and the connections we bring to that experience.

My creative ritual begins with a morning walk. I think of myself as an explorer, collector, and synthesizer. Sometimes I collect physical things like little pieces of wood or rusty bits of metal, and other detritus. I note visual references, like seasonal colors and light, plants, birds, natural and urban landscapes and decay.

In the studio, I play with colors usually inspired by what I absorbed on my walk. For me studio time is a multidimensional, unconscious channeling of past and future into the present. It’s where everything intersects; memory and materials fuse with color and form. I have a shelf that runs the length of my studio. On it, I place pieces of found wood, painted panels , and partial constructions, and whatever other materials I might like to draw from. This is my play area and sketchbook where ideas and imagery take shape.

When I begin a piece, I generally don't follow a blueprint or plan, just a vague framework that allows for changes. I let the material tell me how it wants to go, feeling for the natural physical logic of things, and trying to always stay open to what is developing. There will be parts I like or dislike, and changing them affects the quality of the other parts. It's a constant balancing act. My use of found materials (or repurposed as art) are remnants of a specific place and time. Art making, for me, is a journal, a diary of personal and delicate temporal reflections. In the end, what I want to share with the viewer is an experience that they can enter from their own perspective — a memory, a mood, a place they have been, or one they may visit in the future.