Rachel Borntrager

Rachel Grace Borntrager is a visual artist and educator whose work is devoted to the exploration of line and color as a language for the human body. With more than six years of professional experience and a BA in Studio Art, she creates work that bridges fine art, embodiment, and emotional connection through vibrant abstract paintings.

She is the creator of Soma-Line™, a painting method that maps the body’s emotional and physiological responses through intuitive line work, layered washes, and breath. Rachel is known for her color-sensitive soak-stain and oil pastel raterathan simply depas; drawing from the traditions of Abstract Expressionism, she combines color-feld soak stain techniques, action painting, and principles of mind-body awareness to create works that embody ived experience Rachel regularly collaborates with therapists, designers, nonprofits, businesses, educators, and hospitals, creating experiences that help people of all ages reconnect with themselves and one another through creative expression. She is a member of the Women of The Ozarks 2026 digital cohort, a contracted teaching artist with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, was recently Artist in Residence at Arkansas Children’s Northwest, and is an Artists 360

Practicing Artist Grant recipient.

Rachel lives in Northwest Arkansas with her husband, Chris, and their three children.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is devoted to the exploration of line and color as a language for the human body. I approach the canvas much like a journal entry, ready to record a specific moment in time. Through a process I developed called the Soma-Line Method™, I use awareness of my breath, heart rate, muscle tension, and nervous system sensations to guide the movement of line and color across the canvas, often unfolding from left to right, usually beginning with graphite, and ending with layers of diluted acrylic paint and oil pastel.

In my practice, the body becomes the primary source of mark-making, shaping each painting beyond the constraints of analytical thought or spoken language. Drawing from the traditions of Abstract Expressionism, I combine color-field soak-stain techniques, action painting, and principles of mind-body awareness to create works that embody lived experience rather than simply depict it.

I am especially interested in exploring the capacity of line and color to become a dialect for the body to confront narratives of the mind incongruent with the body’s experience. I hope my work invites viewers to experience their owr alive-ness more deeply, discovering that art can become a language through which the body remembers more fully, communicates, and heals. In doing so, my paintings encourage recognition of the shared experiences that often remain unseen or unspoken, yet are deeply held within us.