Rachel Rivera
Visual Communications
Artist · BDes · Class of 2008
www.radcastle.com/
Rachel Rivera (Radcastle) is a Vancouver-based artist, muralist, and designer whose work explores the intersection of imagination, memory, and the natural world. Through vibrant paintings, immersive installations, and public art, she creates dreamlike spaces that invite viewers to pause, reflect, and reconnect with a sense of wonder.
Drawing inspiration from travel, lucid dreaming, and the emotional landscapes we carry within us, Rivera's work blends abstract forms, playful symbolism, and bold color palettes into visual worlds that feel both familiar and otherworldly. Her practice spans fine art, murals, illustration, and site-specific installations.
Working under the name Radcastle, Rivera's artwork has been exhibited internationally and featured through galleries, publications, and creative collaborations. Her recent body of work explores themes of consciousness, perception, and the spaces between waking life and dreams, creating portals into imagined landscapes that encourage curiosity, reflection, and connection.
Through her work, Rivera aims to bring moments of beauty, play, and possibility into everyday life.
Rachel Rivera's Work
2024
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
48 × 36 in
This painting captures a moment of suspension—flight held between balance and uncertainty. The parrot navigates an unstable line rather than open space, suggesting movement as an emotional state shaped by tension, transition, and quiet resilience.
Acrylic on canvas
36 × 36 in
This painting reflects a transitional state between light and stillness. Soft gradients and simplified forms evoke pause, release, and emotional settling—capturing a moment where time slows and feeling takes precedence over place.
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 12 in
This work explores presence through symbolic figuration. The parrot functions as an emotional stand-in, positioned within an imagined landscape where subtle shifts in colour and form suggest inner awareness, stillness, and latent movement beneath the surface.
Acrylic on canvas
36 × 36 in
Using simplified form and bold colour, this painting explores identity and perception. The toucan appears suspended within a symbolic space, where movement is implied through visual tension rather than action, emphasizing mood over narrative.