Rachael Bertholino

Year of birth: 1979.
Where do you live – San Diego, CA.
Your education: Partial BFA, New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL (merit scholarship recipient).
BA in Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, FL (magna cum laude).
MSW Clinical Social Work, Boston University, Boston, MA.
Describe your art in three words: Evocative, Transcendent, Ethereal.
Website | Instagram

Your art combines elements from various media, including clay, glass, dye, watercolor, and ink. How do you choose which medium to work with for each project?

In a way I think of all my work as one continuous project flowing through me. I am just beginning to scratch the surface of materials I will use to make. I enjoy exploring and seeing what comes out in each, or a mix of them. Each material has its own voice that bring something special and unique. In the beginning I started with the most accessible in art school: paint and clay, and have since continued following my curiosity into inks and dyes for painting, and glass as another challenging material. I want to start combining glass and clay. 

Rachael Bertholino | Whispers | 2024

You describe your process as intuitive and spontaneous. Could you walk us through your creative process when working on a new piece?

When working with canvas painting I work on the floor. I will often prepare the canvas by cutting it to the appropriate size and then rubbing a solution over the entirety of it until soaked. I then begin mixing dyes until I have reached several desired colors. I spill colors on to the canvas partially at random unless I already have an exact plan for what I want to paint. Sometimes I move the color with my fingers or brushes, or at times I let the canvas dry and come back and see if what is standing out to me has changed. The paintings are like my own sort of ink blot tests. I often turn the canvases in different directions to see what calls out to me, and at times I’ll draw and add other mediums like raw pigment, tempera sticks, water soluble pencils or waxes, until I see forms emerging.  I keep playing with the piece until I am satisfied and sometimes I get stuck and need to set it aside for another time and start something else. 

Rachael Bertholino | She | 2024

How does your background in psychology and clinical social work influence the themes and subjects of your artwork?

I like to think of my art as taking note of the full spectrum of life. – Not just the life of one person, but of the lives of many.  In my work you will see splashes of color, androgynous faces, beings and creatures, flora and fauna.  My experience is that of a woman in this lifetime which I understand is starkly different from that of a man, but I know my experience in some ways is not unique. Just one life one can experience an incredible range of experiences.  I read that almost half of Americans have experienced some kind of trauma. How fortunate we are to live in a time when people, who have suffered from unthinkable life crippling atrocities, can get the kind of help they need to put their lives back on a healthy track. This phenomena is relatively new in the history of humanity. In a way I’m trying to capture multiple emotional experiences, and these experiences also extend beyond myself and the physical form, and more specifically that of male, female, this, or that, here or there. 

The female form appears frequently in your artwork. What draws you to explore this subject, and what message do you hope to convey through it?

The female form is very much a powerful experience for me in this lifetime. My body has had a very broad range of experiences. It was both empowered and objectified in the fashion industry while I worked as a fashion model for 12 years from the age of 14 until 26.  I was also objectified as a younger child having endured childhood sexual abuse by adult family members.  I have also had the privilege of giving birth to my daughter naturally without any drugs.  I think I have experienced acutely what it means to the world that I am a female.  My work absolutely confronts these experiences on a broad range and I hope to convey a voice of resilience, intelligence, and empowerment over and through it all. 

Rachael Bertholino | Who | 2024

How do your experiences working in mental health shape the emotional depth and narratives within your art?

This is how the narrative goes beyond my own. Stories directly from others’ experiences, and again through me, inform all of the work. Traumatic experiences by nature are isolating and can bring about feelings of shame and a desire to hide. In the work I do with others, whether they know it or not (usually they don’t), I feel connected and less shame about what has happened to me, and research supports that when patients share their experiences they feel the same.  As we hope, traumatic events often happen in smaller pieces of time when considering the overall length of an entire lifetime. With healing it is possible to also have much joy and a returning to the full spectrum of what life has to offer. I hope to leave none of this out of my artwork. 

You mention the interplay of opposing forces like pain and pleasure, sanity vs insanity, and terrestrial vs extraterrestrial in your work. Can you share an example of how these themes manifest in one of your pieces?

Besides what is happening internally there is also what is being experienced externally.  Another big component of my work is the great mystery of why we’re all here and what it all means. Consciousness, unexplained phenomena, myth, religion, and esotericism are a big point of curiosity and exploration for me. I have read that physicists disagree on the number of dimensions in our universe. String theory suggests there are 10 dimensions.  People often think of unexplained phenomena as potentially extraterrestrial, but what if it’s all here, existing simultaneously, beyond our limited three dimensional perception?  I often wonder what is the true definition of what or who is here and not here with us. Scientists also describe how what we view to be solid mass is actually not solid. Energy can greatly influence other energy whether within close proximity or physically far apart. While looking at my work you may notice I do not often depict forms as solid and distinct. I tend to blur the edges of subjects and objects, if you can make them out at all, suggesting things do not begin or end where it seems.  Also regarding the facial expressions, are they ecstatic or anguished?  All of our past experiences lead us to the understanding we have of the present. So much is here happening at the same time and humans tend to believe we are separate from one other, but are we really? 

Rachael Bertholino | Sprout | 2024

What advice would you give to emerging artists who are balancing multiple passions, like art and mental health work?

Find the will and the time to make. No matter what you do, just make. If the calling nags at you and never stops nagging, the world needs your work. We need your art. Have faith in your journey through your work. You won’t feel complete inside until you make your art, so just do it! The best book I ever read was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the desire to be a creative professional. There are many, many other books I love about creating, but that’s a good place to start.