Rachel Wells Paints Brooklyn With A Touch Of Magic
When Rachel Wells was a child, her grandmother imparted upon her a staunch belief in the “healing virtues of sun, sand and saltwater.” Together, they would go to Coney Island, Brighton Beach and any other sandy shoreline in Brooklyn where they could swim, go on rides, people-watch and soak up the sun.
“I almost drowned many times,” grinned Wells, now 63, as she sat inside the cozy and sun-filled Williamsburg apartment where she has lived and worked for the last past 22 years. “As an adult, I am still at home in the water. I love to swim. I love that people can take off their clothes and are at home [with themselves], away from work. The beach is a great place to be in nature.”
That love of nature, childhood, and Brooklyn is evident in Wells’s personality as well as in her paintings and murals, which capture such universal scenes of joy, tranquility, life and freedom in vibrant colors. Under her imagination and paintbrush, children play in the sand or on the playground, a lone man floats languidly in a canoe along a river, flowers bloom in glass bottles, and families go on field trips.