I’m Rachel Spelling and I’m the artist who paints miniatures onto paint charts!
In 2020 I went from painting huge residential murals to painting tiny miniatures on paint charts, and in the process I stumbled upon a space at the exact mid-point between the worlds of art and interiors which I didn’t know existed. It’s a place which is full of possibilities and it’s where I feel completely at home, so I moved in! I’m bursting with ideas for an alternative way to think about colour, paint, art and our homes which is fresh, creative and fun and which opens up a whole new way of looking at the walls around us. This is how I got here…
THE STORY OF STUDIO SPELLING
For as long as I can remember all I’ve ever wanted to do is draw and paint. I studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and I worked as an artist for many years. In 2014 I launched Studio Spelling and stepped into the world of luxury interiors, designing and painting residential murals and bespoke hand-painted wallpaper. I loved my work but there was always something about the world I was operating in which didn’t feel quite right. It was very exclusive, and although there should really have been endless creative possibilities, the designs that were commissioned by my clients were often based on things which they’d seen elsewhere. I craved a way of working that allowed me to bring in new ideas, and lots of them.
Then March 2020 came along, and everything changed. Covid put all my projects on hold and I found myself at home with a really strong desire to paint walls but no walls left to paint. I had lots of paint charts lying around my house and one long lockdown day I realised that the tiny colour chips were like perfectly prepped walls, just waiting for a miniature mural. I tried one out on a Farrow and Ball chart - it was a fish, on Stone Blue. The fish looked good. It felt familiar, but also completely new. This was quiet, kitchen table work which couldn’t be cancelled due to Covid. So I painted some more - an eye, a hat, a ball, a cake - and suddenly the colour chart seemed to be coming alive before my eyes. It was as if it was illuminated. I was getting hundreds of ideas for how to transform the vast palette of beautiful colours into landscapes, still lifes, miniature portraits… And so I let myself get carried away and I painted the whole damn thing!
When I finished it I tried to figure out what I’d made - 132 mini murals? A tiny exhibition? A Google image search? An ideas generator? A colour workshop? A storyboard for a strange film? I think most of all it was about finding a way to keep going, and calling on the magical, medicinal power of making things to get through a tough time. And it felt so great to have a place to put all my ideas; the more I painted the more ideas I had - it was like opening a floodgate. I knew I’d found a way of working that made me really, really happy.
I took some photos, showed it to my mini Instagram and I put it away in a drawer. And then, to my surprise, it started to spread - and it just didn’t stop! Suddenly I was in conversation with people from all over the world. Farrow and Ball commissioned me to paint new miniatures just for them, to launch their 2021 trend colours. A lot of doors that I’d been knocking at for years suddenly sprang open. It was such a wonderful feeling, after that long period of isolation, to connect with so many people through my work.
In the two years that followed, as the world opened up again, I became completely engrossed in painting colour cards. Then I started finding vintage paint charts, from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and a whole new set of possibilities opened up. I realised I could step back in time and use the paintings to conjure the complicated lives and thoughts and dreams of imagined women, with the fresh, clear colours of mid-twentieth century domestic interiors as a backdrop. This is where I’m up to today!
This work has limitless possibilities. I’ve always wanted to find a way of working as an artist which allowed me to think about about fashion, interiors, written fiction, cinema and music - all the things that make life colourful and exciting - and I’m so happy that I’ve now found a space for all of these things in my work. And there’s something else which I really want to work with which is hard to describe. It has to do with the way a colour in a room can make you feel - something about those in-between feelings, moods and atmospheres, half-thoughts and dreamy memories, which I find so exciting to conjure up with paint, and which this work gives me unlimited freedom to explore.
I’m mainly painting tiny walls now but I’m bringing back big walls too (see Big Walls !) and I’m planning to think outside the box for those as well. It’s brilliant outside the box - come and join me! The best way to stay in the loop is to sign up to my mailing list. I have sales of original paintings several times a year, I bring out new prints whenever they’re ready and I’ve got lots more good stuff up my sleeve. I’m all about making art which finds its way straight from my studio onto living, breathing walls in real homes. It’s exciting to hang on a gallery wall, but my work’s real home is the home. I want it to be enjoyed to the max by you, from the moment you wake up and in the millions of miniature moments that make up everyday life. And if it matches your wall colour - well, that is just fabulous!
