Rachel Burke's work is known for its cuteness, bright colors, nostalgia, and unabashed dopamine inducement, beloved by stars like Harry Styles and Cate Blanchett. The Brisbane-based multidisciplinary artist, designer, and writer is celebrated for her sunshine and rainbow-infused handcrafted creations.
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02-05, 2025Her tactile, wearable tinsel garments have become an iconic design, instantly recognizable on the red carpet. However, behind her glittering public persona, she has been dealing with the devastating and numbing effects of personal trauma for the past two years. In 2023, she experienced her second of three miscarriages that year, including a twin pregnancy, in the aisle of a craft store.
"I was buying some Perler beads... I had to go to the store's bathroom to finish the miscarriage," Burke told ABC Arts. For the better part of the time that followed, she maintained the engaging work on her successful Instagram page while privately carving out time to begin processing her experiences. She did so in what she admits is the most "frenzied of craft" ways. Her material of choice? Perler beads. The experience in the craft store stayed with her.
"Symbolically, all of a sudden the Perler beads had so much more meaning," Burke said. Perler beads are a plastic craft material commonly used by children, arranged on a grid to form a pattern, then melted and fused together with an iron to create an image. "They're so fragile, like one wrong touch, which I would often do, would completely ruin the design. The whole process is really prone to error." "I felt like that weirdly mirrored my experience, the fragility of creating babies somehow."
After an effort involving over 500,000 Perler beads, Burke created the collection "Thank You For Nothing," currently on display at Brisbane's Side Gallery. She didn't initially intend to create an exhibition, but she realized it was an important opportunity to speak publicly about the "taboo" topic of miscarriage. "The obsessive, repetitive making process became both a sanctuary and a mode of healing, allowing me to confront and process my grief and transform it into something tangible," she wrote in her artist statement. Moreover, as an artist, she felt a responsibility to share her work with the many others who have experienced miscarriage.
Prior to the exhibition, bypassing Burke's pair of boisterous dachshunds and descending the stairs of her Queensland, Brisbane home, one enters a predictably colorful home studio. It is here that Burke creates her incredible works, including creative collaborations with major global brands like Disney, Lego, and Barbie. (Her interview with ABC was almost rescheduled because Airbnb booked her to style a project in Goa, India.) Currently, much of the work has actually been pushed aside as her large, flat Perler bead works occupy most of the tabletop space and part of the floor.
For the past two years, this space has been her place to slowly, bead by bead, undergo emergency treatment. As she struggled to process her recurrent pregnancy loss, the repetitiveness of creating patterns from these small plastic beads fostered mindfulness. Burke says the meditative process promoted "healing, reflection, and catharsis," but she admits that sometimes it was also just necessary "numbing." "Getting through these miscarriages is so physically exhausting and takes so much time, and making these little Perler beads and sharing how I was feeling while processing it made so much sense... it just became a form of art therapy for me." The work became a way to overcome a sense of isolation.
The experience of miscarriage was more painful and frightening than she understood from the common descriptions of miscarriage, such as "a heavy period." "In each of my miscarriages, I was told it would be like having a period, losing it. But it was so much more painful than that." "The things that were said to me and the care and advice I received was so contradictory and so confusing and so isolating."
Burke is fully aware of the strange tension in this project—a brightly colored children's craft material being used to help overcome the trauma of miscarriage. But she says the nostalgia of the material was important because it "sparked joy" at the time. Fused together, her decorative Perler bead panels become stiff and brightly colored bags and fluorescent "wall quilts." "Because I spent so much time in bed after my miscarriages, the idea of quilts and duvets really made sense." Their designs are inspired by domestic patterns such as vintage quilts, patchwork, tea towels, and cross-stitch. The bags reflect Burke's "recurring desire to place my emotions and experiences elsewhere while spending time recovering." They are another place to store heavy emotions.
Etched into her outwardly cute, plastic designs are words Burke repeatedly heard after her miscarriages. Others come from diary entries at the time, or painful, persistent feelings. These are things that other people said to her, or that she said to herself after the miscarriages. For example, there are 28 repeating multi-colored tiles with the phrase "Thank You For Nothing" etched into them—a phrase the artist often said to herself, to her body. "I remember when I was trying to get pregnant again, there was this frenzied feeling. I would do a pregnancy test every day of the cycle, even if it didn't make sense, trying to make myself feel better. I just remember having this feeling like, 'Thank you for nothing,' and anger at my body... feeling like my body was a failure."
Another painful phrase etched into the plastic is "It's so common." Burke says she heard it hundreds of times, both inside and outside of medical settings. "Doctors would just say how common it is, and while that's definitely true, it actually ended up being really frustrating because it felt like if it's so common, why can't I find some answers about why I'm miscarrying? It felt like every time it was like, 'Oh, it's so common, you have nothing to worry about.'"
After beginning to talk to people about her miscarriages, she learned that there is a perception that "miscarriage is a deep, dark secret and it's shocking to share something like that." "There's an unspoken shame. I understand why... but I don't like it." Her latest work is a direct response to this. "I just wanted to highlight these phrases, I wanted to put them on the wall in order to spark discussion, to reflect on what we say to women who are going through this in their lives, and to think about it more, to unravel our own reactions and taboos about things." "I just want to be able to talk about it."
Burke already knows how effective art can be as a vehicle for difficult conversations and connection. Several years ago, in her Apomogy project, people would submit anonymous apologies, from lighthearted to life-changing, which she would attach to pom-poms. "I know how much connection can happen through craft and art," she said. But this new work is different. In order to open up a dialogue around this silent topic, her own vulnerability needed to take center stage in the art. The opportunity for connection is key. "Even unrelated to my art, as I was going through this, because I entered this miscarriage club, I was able to connect with my friends—and people I didn't know—who had experienced miscarriage." "As soon as I felt like you told one woman you were going through it, they would say, 'Oh, I've had three, or I've had four'... I've had people tell me they've had seven."
Burke hopes that her latest work, displayed in a gallery environment, will create a safe environment for much-needed conversation and connection. "I wanted to lead with my own story, just tell my honest story, and then encourage other people to do that too, because along with feeling like my female body was a failure and exploring that difficult space and navigating all of that, that taboo and isolation was overwhelming," she said. "I was just overwhelmed by how much other women shared, and how much other women had gone through, even just by sharing my story. It was really incredible. It was all bubbling under the surface." "I quickly realized that talking about miscarriage triggered a lot of feelings for me that made me feel like miscarriage was taboo, and that what I had gone through maybe shouldn't be talked about." "There are people in my life who maybe don't quite understand why I'm doing this, because they're like, 'Why don't you want to stay in your sunshine and rainbow lane?'" "I just hope to be able to remove the taboo and the weight."
Burke says that "Thank You For Nothing" is in some ways "a classic case of turning lemons into lemonade." "When you see the work, it's cute, it looks beautiful, it's nostalgic, it's dopamine-inducing, all of those things are me. But there's also trauma, vulnerability, and a very real experience." "Absolutely, two things can exist at the same time. I think I hope that that work, I hope that that message comes across."
**Rachel Burke – Thank You For Nothing is on display until February 14 at Side Gallery in Brisbane.**
