Rima Staines

~ the best illustrator of the realm of faërie, oak-smoked, sad-strung but vital that I have ever seen.

~ Jay Griffiths

Rima Staines is an artist whose work straddles myth, magical realism and the folk arts. She has worked over the years predominantly as a painter, but also with music, writing, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, theatre, puppetry, animation and book arts. In 2018 she was a finalist in the 'Best Artist' category of the World Fantasy awards.

Rima has a long-held fascination with the idea of the liminal - that which lies at the edge of culture and society as well as the literal boundaries between one place and another, both metaphorical and real - and with the power of art that comes from that place.

“My belief in the power of art to change things runs deep, and thus my work is very much simultaneously alchemy and activism. I am fascinated by how talismanic, apotropaic imagery has been used throughout human history to make real magic, and it is in that realm that I work. 

Myth and story, of course, are vital threads in my work - they speak truth to us in a similar non-linear language to that which imagery speaks, we need them more than we think we do because inside them are old maps back home.”