James Allen

BIO

Rachel Rinker (b. 1994, Goose Creek, SC) is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician and composer currently based in Phoenix, Arizona and pursuing her MFA at Arizona State University (ASU), where she teaches Drawing. Rinker earned her BFA from Clemson University with an emphasis in Painting in 2016. Her practice moves fluidly between painting, printmaking, and contemporary music composition, creating layered abstractions that explore memory, relationships, color and the natural world. 

Rinker’s work has been exhibited nationally in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions. Forthcoming in 2026, her MFA solo thesis exhibition, An Amalgamation of Place, will be shown at the Tempe Center for the Arts, Tempe, AZ. Rinker recently won a Nathan Cummings Summer Travel Award and used the funds to attend an artist residency at Arteles Creative Center in Haukijärvi, Finland as an alumni during June 2025. She previously attended Arteles Creative Center as an artist in residence during the winter of 2023. Other residencies include South Porch Artists Residency in Summerville, SC (2023) and Open Wabi in Fredericktown, OH (2018). 

Rinker has been involved with ASU’s New Music Ensemble (ACME) since Spring of 2024, and premiered her first musical composition titled Yellow Breeze (and unclenched shoulders) during the Fall 2024 PRISMS Contemporary Music Festival, hosted by ASU. She has been involved in other performances with ASU’s Composition Studio and performs this year as part of the Desert Echoes Flute (DEF) Project in Mesa, AZ.