For artist Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith, working collaboratively and solo are two sides of the same coin, with works abundantly connected to empowerment. Whether painting a canvas alone in her studio, directing a mural project, or curating and producing immersive events with other creatives, she flourishes at the crossroads of art, music, and entertainment.
“I’m first and foremost a painter, specializing in murals and public art. I lead the mural program at Solano State Prison, where I teach and create murals with incarcerated men. I’m also the founder of Wolfe Pack Studios in Oakland—a creative clubhouse and event space for artists,” Wolfe-Goldsmith told 48hills.
Formal studies have taken her places: a Chicago Art Institute Summer Figure Drawing Intensive in 2006; Portland Community College and Lane Community College in Oregon for Printmaking, Figure Drawing, and Design; a residency at the Vermont Studio Center and studies at Sadie Valerie Atelier in San Francisco in 2018. More recently, Wolfe-Goldsmith studied Arabic Calligraphy in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2023.
Born of Nigerian, Jewish, and European heritage and raised in Eugene, Oregon, Wolfe-Goldsmith was surrounded by vast natural beauty—and a whole lot of rain. She recalls its idyllic milieu, but by the time she turned 18, she was eager to live in a bigger city.
“I always loved visiting family in the Bay Area as a kid. When my best friend who was living in Oakland with four other artists had a room open up in 2011, I moved there. I wanted to be part of a city with more cultural depth and creative energy where I could grow into my art,” she said.
She currently lives near Downtown Oakland and loves that the art community feels supportive and collaborative, rather than aggressively competitive, a key to the broader scope of her integrative work across the region.
“The Bay Area has always been a home for rebellion, from sideshows and the Hyphy era to the Black Panthers, Afro-futurism, psychedelics, and political resistance. That spirit is what drew me here, and it’s what’s kept me here. In Oakland especially, people share resources, ideas, and passion—it’s a community that builds together,” Wolfe-Goldsmith said.
Striving for work that is expressive and bold, yet ethereal, Wolfe-Goldsmith draws inspiration from the world around her. Nature has always been a grounding force for the artist, but the urban environment has become her constant source material.
“Oakland itself inspires me daily—the artists, musicians, and creators I’m surrounded by often show up in my paintings as models or muses. My work also responds to the state of the world—the good, the bad, and everything in between,” she said.
She cites artists Kayla May, Max Sansing, Oliver Vernon, Jean Pierre Roy, David Chong Lee, Joshua Mays, Devin B. Johnson, Sugary Garbage, Sydney James, and Hueman as direct influences.
“I also look up to Oakland muralists like the Illuminaries, Vogue, DJ Agana, Few and Far Women, and Juana Alicia, and many others who are foundational to the Bay Area’s street art and graffiti scene,” she said.
And because she is such a collaborative artist, Wolfe-Goldsmith gives a shout out to the locals she works with as people she greatly admires, including Zoe Boston, Sorrel Raino Tsui, Andre Jahmora, Timothy B, and Steve Anderson, to name a few.
Wolfe-Goldsmith’s subject matter centers around the human form, which she describes as sometimes fragmented, sometimes whole, and set against abstract, architectural, or organic elements. Working with palette knives, big brushes, drips, and transparent layers, Wolfe-Goldsmith brings her characters and scenes to life for murals that depict living “change-makers and world builders.” Weaving together images taken from both urban and natural settings, she even paints herself into the storyline at times.
“The series of paintings I’ve been working on pulls directly from my life. I’ve been photographing Oakland’s rawer sides—encampments, barbed wire, piles of trash—and mixing those with figurative references I make myself. For one painting I strapped into a harness at the climbing gym to capture the sensation of flying. For another, I staged a fight with my boyfriend to study the forms. Later in the series, I bring in desert landscapes I’ve visited, from the arches of the Southwest to the rolling dunes of the Sahara. A final piece imagines an abandoned mosque at the edge of the desert as a kind of gateway,” she said.
Some of the images derived from personal experience are not always positive ones, among them surviving abusive relationships, losing everything in a 2018 studio fire, and witnessing displacement in Oakland. Add to that the pressurized state of the world. Yet Wolfe-Goldsmith infuses these elements with beauty to bring it all into balance.
“Juxtaposed with the urban are desert scenes in shades of blue, wide open and calm. The trip to Morocco stuck with me, the way spirituality runs through daily life there. Where you can hear your own thoughts. In a time when the American empire feels like it’s collapsing, my new series reflects both frustration and conflict, but also the search for inner clarity and spiritual connection to the unseen forces that move through life,” she said.
Her studio in Oakland at 13th and Broadway is inconspicuous, with a discreet doorway next to the iconic De Lauer’s Super Newsstand, but inside it opens up to brick walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, and cozy modern decor. She moved into the space, dubbed Wolfe Pack Studios, just over a year ago from a gallery space on Harrison Street and relishes the collaborative vibe.
“There are big redwood desks full of creatives working during the day, and a huge Cyc Wall System and stage that we use for events and photo shoots. My own office is part of the main space, with high ceilings, an original brick wall, and about fifteen paintings in progress hanging floor to ceiling,” she said.
The series she has been immersed in, Unfinished Business, was started at the Harrison Street space and will be completed for exhibition in 2026. It’s her first full body of work since the studio fire destroyed everything she had, prompting a period focused on creating murals. With such a dedicated return to paintings on canvas, Wolfe-Goldsmith says she begins a day in the studio with coffee and a joint to spark inspiration.
“I’ll sit on my little couch, blaze, sip, and feel out which painting is calling me that day. Sometimes I warm up, sometimes I dive straight in. For underpaintings I use acrylic—fast, bold, and easy to paint over when something doesn’t work. I keep about thirty small plastic cups of pre-mixed acrylic colors on hand, covered and ready to go. I sketch with oil crayons and charcoal, then build up layers with drips, chemical reactions, brushes, rakes, and rubber knives,” Wolfe-Goldsmith said.
In what she calls “the second half of a painting’s life,” she shifts to oils to add richness, softness, and flexibility, keeping colors in covered palettes so she can pick up where she left off at any time.
“My process is part planned, part exploratory—I’ll have a loose concept and references, but every piece evolves as I work. I know it’s done when it feels resolved, when the layers stop asking for more,” she said.
Her numerous murals can be seen around the Bay Area, including, Our Movement, painted with acrylics on brick at Oakland’s Tribune Tower (2020), which Wolfe-Goldsmiths says “honors the power of black women and a connection to lineage through movement and art.” Other murals can be seen across other cities including Washington DC, and Eugene, Oregon, and a recent work, The Only Constant, was created for the 2024 Knoxville Walls Mural Festival in Tennessee.
“It’s an ode to the unknown and unexpected. Planes of reality shift as a woman falls between dimensions,” she said.
Since 2024, Wolfe-Goldsmith’s leadership of the mural program at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, has been an opportunity to work with groups of incarcerated men to visually transform the institution.
“It’s about more than just painting—it builds camaraderie between groups that are usually divided, teaches real-world creative job skills, and even gives participants time off their sentences,” she said.
Wolfe-Goldsmith is also active in producing immersive events. Most recently, she put together a Soul Train-themed Halloween party where hosts and attendees were fully costumed, with décor, music, and movie-set builds, effectively resurrecting the popular 1970s TV show.
“Soul Train was such a monumental cultural moment, giving Black people a national platform to showcase fashion, dance, and joy, and I wanted to recreate that energy in the present day,” she said.
Additionally, Wolfe-Goldsmith has started a small women’s group that meets monthly, bringing participants together to share spiritual practices and engage with the feminine.
“It’s become a beautiful, rejuvenating space for women and femmes to connect more deeply than we usually get the chance to,” she said.
Wolfe-Goldsmith says that her younger self would be surprised by how much she values softness and wholesomeness in her life now, having become more solid in the day-to-day than she was in her past.
“My youth was pretty chaotic, which is probably why I’m so peaceful now. My thrill-seeking nature is still alive, but it’s channeled into different outlets—ice and rock climbing, throwing wild creative events, operating heavy machinery, pushing my body through exercise.”
In other areas of her life, Wolfe-Goldsmith loves to dance, especially at Days Like This—a free, inclusive community party on Friday nights at Lake Merritt that has become a staple for her. She is also part of the outdoor community through Negus in Nature, an Oakland-based nonprofit.
“We do group camping, hiking, ice climbing, and retreats that bring Black people together in nature. I also take care of my garden and my cats, spend time with my partner, and do a lot of cooking,” she said.
A thoroughly creative and curious soul, when asked what question she is trying to answer through her work, she first wondered, if given the opportunity to live inside a painting, what would that landscape look like? But she had other thoughts: If the empire falls, what next? If I could talk to plants, what would they tell me? With regard to process, she wonders about what happens when she paints without thinking, without a plan? Those ponderings should keep her busy for a while!
Having taken a long break from gallery exhibitions, Wolfe-Goldsmith says it has afforded her time to plunge deeper into her practice without outside influence and her solo show in 2026 will be the culmination of two years in this mode. Whether intersecting with other creative minds or painting solo in her studio, she says it’s not up to her what people experience from her work.
“I just hope the work creates some kind of experience. Whether you find my work inspiring, thought-provoking, triggering, or unsettling, I just hope that it moves you in some way.”
At the very least, Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith understands the transformative power of art, a force that guides her ever forward.
“I really believe that writing, drawing, and dreaming are world-building practices that can shape the future of humanity,” she said. “If we can talk about an idea, write it down, and visualize it, we’re already closer to making it real. As artists—and as creative beings in general—we all have the power to shape the future, even if it begins only in the mind.”
For more information, visit her website rachelwolfegoldsmith.com and on Instagram.
