Rachel Calder

I am a designer and maker of light sculptures. Light is my primary medium. I use light and other materials to reflect and interrogate the natural world: sunlight, starlight, water, trees. I set lights in resin with reclaimed wood, exploring in each piece how to illuminate beauty in the old timbers which otherwise might go unnoticed. The resin holds and preserves the wood in varying states from pristine to part-decayed. Light and resin act like sunlight and water. I bring them together to clarify and expose my materials in new ways. I experiment with dyes and pigments to recreate the aesthetics and atmosphere of the night sky or deep sea, offering translucent shallows and veiled depths.  I work from a home studio in Bangor, Co. Down and draw on ideas and materials from local woodland and seashore. My work has been shown and sold locally and internationally and has featured on several occassions in 'The Light Source' in House and Garden.