Bio

Rachel Hermes is an artist from Wichita, KS who specializes in electrolytic etching, combining traditional methods with contemporary technology to work safely without sacrificing quality. She received her BFA with emphases in Painting and Printmaking from Kansas State University in December 2019. From 2018 to 2021, Rachel worked as a research assistant studying electrolytic etching under Prof. Jason Scuilla. In 2024, she organized the Current Prints Electrolytic Research Fair & Open House at the Mid-America Print Council Biennial Conference. She has demonstrated for Print Council of America (2019), MAPC (2024), and at Wichita State University (2025). Rachel will begin graduate studies at Northern Illinois University in Fall 2026.

Artist Statement

My work is a multi-layered examination of long-term consequences of
depersonalization and my subsequent attempts to conceptualize my place in the Universe. Experiencing profound loss at an early age led me to view much of life through a lens of deep-seated loneliness. The unrecognized effects of trauma and a fractured inner world manifest themselves in my art through detached figures, dreamlike environs, and hyperfocus on specific details. My pieces are primarily self portraits, yet they reflect the disconnect I feel from my body, my emotions, my surroundings, and time.

Simultaneously, the work illuminates a growing desire to connect to the world. Having grown up within various frameworks which reject reciprocal relationships with the environment, I feel an obligation to understand humanity’s relationship to Nature. I explore transformation over time, capturing contradictory dualities: life and death; growth and decay; creation and destruction. Plants, vines, and roots read as a marked cadence of slow growth that references deep time – distant pasts and imagined futures. By recalling the ancient history of the Earth, I am able to envision a far distant future, beyond human civilization. Blazing suns symbolize the incomprehensible scale of the Universe and signify a powerful demand to accept my existence.