Rachel Rixen is a Chicago-based watercolor artist and urban sketcher whose work captures the quiet, often overlooked moments of everyday life. Inspired by her travels, she seeks to recreate the memory and feeling of the places she has visited.

A lifelong artist, she grew up in Minnesota and pursued a B.A. in French and cross-cultural studies at Augsburg University, followed by an M.A. in cultural translation at the American University of Paris. Her artistic path was reignited in 2011 during a plein air sketching course in Tuscany and Umbria, where she discovered a deep love for watercolor under the guidance of Tara Sweeney. Her time living in Paris cultivated a passion for travel and language that continues to inform her artistic work.  

She launched her art business, Lakes and Lights Art, in 2014 and transitioned from a career in law to full-time painting in 2023. She has been an artist-in-residence at La Maison de Beaumont in Provence in 2024 and 2025. Her work is held in private collections across the United States, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Canada, and New Zealand.