About
Rachel Temkin is a New York based makeup artist specializing in character design.
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As a child, Rachel was always writing and illustrating her own stories. With her brother, she would explore the woods across from her home where she imagined an entire world of fantasy complete with detailed lore. She would then take branches and vines she found while exploring and bring them home to turn them into magic wands. When Rachel saw the movie Big Fish, that wonder and whimsy that she was able to see in a seemingly ordinary things like a grouping of trees expanded tenfold. She could see the magic in things that other people didn’t tend to see.
In 2016 Rachel obtained a BFA in Visual and Critical Studies from School of Visual Arts where she came upon a class called "Intro to Makeup for Film". She discovered she could combine her love of art, story telling, and characters through makeup. Suddenly everything she had learned from the world of fine arts connected with that childhood wonder. The techniques she used in painting, drawing and sculpture could be applied to designing characters that lived and breathed off the page. After falling in love with the artistry of makeup, she then went on to take the advanced course, become the TA, and subsequently intern for a summer at her teachers shop, Gotham FX. Since graduating, Rachel has worked providing makeup for various types of projects such as web series, independent films, and immersive theater. She is also constantly developing and practicing with personal projects.
Rachel recently completed the Master’s program at Makeup Designory (MUD). It was during those 812 hours of intensive training that she honed her craft through a series of beauty and fashion photoshoots and designed a range of characters. Rachel looks forward to continuing to explore other forms of media and collaborate to help bring characters to life. She aims to show that makeup reveals as well as transforms. The world and people around us are more than what they seem. There is bizarreness in the ordinary, beauty in the bizarre, and at the core of everything, always a story to tell.