| Artist | Racheal Bruce | Resides | United States |
| Website | rachealbruce.com | Mediums | Ink Pencil Marker |
| Print Shop | etsy.com/rachaelbruceart | rachealmbruce@gmail.com | |
| Follow the Artist | Themes | Fantastical Unreality Hoaxes Whimsy Eeriness Superstition Performance Gender & Sexuality |
About the artist
Racheal Bruce is a St. Louis-born illustrator and educator. She graduated in the first class of MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture at Washington University and is the Assistant Professor in Illustration at Webster University. She’s also a member of Illustrators for Hire.
Racheal specializes in book illustration, editorial illustration, and poster design. Her work has been published in magazines internationally. Her personal work explores performative aspects of gender and sexuality, the history of cursed films, and 19th century optical animation toys.
Winner of the Walt Reed Award for Excellence in Illustration and Writing, included in the Society of Illustrators 65 Annual and two time Best in Show winner. Her project Excorio received a Cube Award from the 101st Annual Art Directors Club Awards.
Clients include The Washington Post, Bastille Magazine, The Centre for International Governance Innovation, The Baffler, VinePair, The Gullet, Brasserie Dunham, Strange Horizons, The Polyester Dollhouse, Aislin Magazine, and Anthology Puzzles.
Artwork Themes & Subject Matter
“Drawing allows us to see, record and interpret the world, but it’s also one of the oldest and most basic tools of human connection: to study another person to such a degree is a practice in empathy”. This is what Racheal Bruce enjoys about illustration—it is an opportunity to visualize complex ideas or difficult narratives with sensitivity, emotion and complexity. She’s curious about illustration as performance art, and through this curiosity she explores how an audience grapples with their own feelings of superstition. She plays with believable falsehoods: placing the viewer in a realm where they believe a fiction is real enough that they engage in a communal game of storytelling.
Racheal’s work imbues the feeling that a fantastical unreality could exist in our physical world, with all of the whimsy and eeriness that comes with it.
Press
Racheal Bruce’s illustrations have been featured in notable magazines and books including Polyester Magazine, Strange Horizons, Aislin Magazine, The Meat Puppet Issue #2, New Territory Issue #16, and Myrtlehaus Issue #4.
CV
Education
2021
MFA, Emphasis in Illustration & Visual Culture, Washington University Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, St. Louis, MO, United States
2019
BFA, Emphasis in Illustration, Webster University Department of Art, Design, & Art History, St. Louis, MO, United States
Selected Group Exhibition
2024
Queer Narratives Festival, InterUrban ArtHouse, Overland Park, KS. United States
ICON Gallery Show, Chambers Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. United States
10th Biannual Exhibition, Angad Arts Hotel, St. Louis, MO. United States
Paradiso, Weil Gallery, Corpus Christi, TX. United States
2023
Spring Exhibit, 31 Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO. United States
Society of Illustrators 65, The Society of Illustrators, New York, NY. United States
2022
Light, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO. United States, Winner of the Award of Excellence
2021
MFA Thesis Show, High Low Gallery, St. Louis, MO. United States, Winner of the Walt Reed Award for Excellence in Illustration and Writing
2019
My Mom Said I Could Be Anything, BFA Exhibition, Webster University Arcade Contemporary Art Projects, St. Louis, MO. United States, Winner of the Best in Show Excellence Award
