Rachel Bensimon
Rachel Bensimon is a Canadian-born artist based in New York City whose paintings explore memory, girlhood, and the inner life through a lens of psychological symbolism and surreal intimacy. Working in oil, she creates emotionally resonant portraits of girls and young women, often accompanied by dolls, animals, and symbolic objects—each piece a quiet ritual, a visual spell, or a whispered fragment of an untold story.
From a young age, Rachel turned to drawing as a source of solace and self-expression. That early instinct evolved into a lifelong devotion to visual storytelling. She studied for over a decade at The Art Students League and later earned her MFA at the New York Academy of Art. During her early career, she also worked as a makeup artist in the fashion world, collaborating with top photographers and publications in Paris and New York—a background that continues to inform her sensitivity to form, detail, and atmosphere.
Much of Rachel’s practice is autobiographical, drawing from childhood memories and emotional landscapes shaped by loss, resilience, and a longing for belonging. Her visual language blends classical technique with a contemporary pop-surrealist aesthetic, drawing inspiration from artists like Balthus, Joseph Cornell, Goya, and Mark Ryden. Whether portraying a solitary girl in a dreamlike interior or a tender moment with a beloved animal, each painting reflects her fascination with the threshold between innocence and knowing, between the seen and the secret.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the United States, including Brassworks Gallery, Modern Eden Gallery, and the L.A. Art Show. She continues to build a visual mythology rooted in healing, memory, and the sacred in the everyday.
Artist Statement
Through my art, I embark on a journey of exploring and expressing the vibrant inner worlds of girls and young women. I seek to capture the delicate balance between innocence and maturity, vulnerability and strength. My portraits reflect the profound impact that childhood experiences have on shaping our identities. By embracing the interplay of light and shadow through old master techniques, I aim to illuminate the joys, dreams, inevitable struggles, and complexities of youth, as well as the challenges that have shaped my own growth.
I also have a fascination with dolls, and in some of my work, a doll—the object of a little girl’s affection and idealization—is transformed by animating it with a life force, infused with its own personal voice and a complex endowment of emotions and personality. The contrast between innocence and sexuality is portrayed in a way that is both whimsical and disconcerting, hinting at the fleeting passage of time. I use antique dolls to paradoxically elicit a sense of nostalgia coupled with subversive sentimentality.
The influence of Balthus’s young girls and the incongruous mysticism surrounding the constructions and assemblages of surrealist Joseph Cornell are echoed in this particular series of paintings. Autobiographical in nature, the visual vocabulary I utilize expresses an inner dialogue between the eyes of my unique childhood experiences and the universal nature of innocence and purity associated with childhood in general. I seek to capture the delicate balance between innocence and maturity, vulnerability and strength. My portraits reflect the profound impact that childhood experiences have on shaping our identities.
The viewer is presented with a secret passageway through which they may experience their own childhood memories and emotions. Through my artwork, I invite viewers to reconnect with their own inner child, to reminisce, and to rediscover the resilience and beauty that lies within. I explore the duality of childhood, embracing both the moments of pure joy and the challenges that shape us. By expressing the musings of my inner child, my art invites viewers to reflect upon their own stories and rediscover the beauty and resilience within us all.
www.rachelbensimonfineart.com
