Rachel Gregor

Rachel Gregor (b. 1990) composes layered, narrative figurative work that blends observation, fantasy, art history, and folklore.  Working primarily in gouache and oil paint, Gregor’s mark making has a fleeting sense of urgency combined with control and restraint.  This gives her subjects a sense of being in an ephemeral state while also maintaining physicality and naturalism.  Gregor’s earth tone palettes clash with alien green and neon oranges, while acidic ink washes and bright undertones illuminate the over-painting.  The constant shift of brightness within her work suggests an uncanny light-from-within.  Shadows misalign with multiple light sources, alluding to an ever changing sense of time and space that becomes other-wordly.

Her subjects are often isolated within matte-black paint, landscapes that are blocked off with obstructing branches, and windows that open to inescapable voids.  Gregor constructs her environments as if they were a black box production.  Confrontational figures occupy a stage-like framing, allowing themselves to be carefully observed as they hint at what is behind the scenes with cryptic gestures and forlorn, thousand yard stares.

Rachel Gregor lives and works in Kansas City, MO. She graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2012 and has studied abroad at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. She was born and raised in Medina, MN.  Botanical motifs are a common theme throughout Gregor’s visual lexicon, a nod to her upbringing of her family owning their own horticulture nursery and agricultural farm.

Gregor’s inaugural solo exhibition with Hashimoto Contemporary was in 2023, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Zürich, Switzerland, and group exhibition participation nationwide. Her work has been featured in print publications such as New American Paintings (issue #161) Create Magazine (issue #10, issue #25) and has been interviewed by Juxtapoz (Winter 2025) as well as online at BOOOOOOOM (03/05/2018) the Jealous Curator (1/11/2021).