Artist: Rachel Reeve
Rachel Reeve, a visual artist based in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley has exhibited in Canada, Japan and the U.S. Reeve received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University). Most recently she has honed her skills in Gyotaku. Primarily working in art education for 15 years, in 2018 she began a full-time studio practice. Read more about Rachel here.
What is your biggest indulgence as an artist?
My biggest indulgence is letting the natural world set the pace — slowing down enough to listen, touch, and follow the quiet instructions hidden in leaves, fish, and shorelines.
What is important to you as an artist?
As an artist, what matters most to me is cultivating a tactile, intuitive connection with the natural world. I’m guided by the subtle energies and quiet forms of trust that nature offers, letting hands-on process, presence, and material honesty shape my work. My practice is a way of listening deeply and creating pieces that carry calm, resonance, and a sense of aliveness.
What challenges you the most in your practice?
I love natural materials, but they can be unpredictable. Their texture, weight, and behaviour shift with environment and handling. The challenge is to collaborate with them rather than control them.
What themes or symbols are important to you as an artist?
I am drawn to nature as both collaborator and storyteller. Water, with its creatures and plants, embodies emotion, memory, and the subconscious — fluid, shifting, yet constant. Trees, flora, and landforms connect us to history, rootedness, and belonging. Through my practice — from fish and botanical printing to mixed media — I explore the interplay of memory, place, and identity, honoring the energy and presence of the natural world. My work is less about representing nature than listening to it, collaborating with it, and letting it share its own stories of transformation, connection, and continuity.
If you were to hang one work of art by another artist in your home, which would you choose?
Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm). Sheet 31 from the portfolio Nature Studies April 21, 1920 by Hilma af Klint.