Rachel Stewart's Artist Statement, Work, and Andrew Blair's Critique

Have you ever tried to get a good look at the sun?  It is painful to attempt and impossible if you try without the proper viewing device.  I am compelled to see the sun, so I like using the people and things that I paint for this purpose. 

In my paintings I try to give the viewer a way to see something real that can not be seen, and I always try to tell the truth.  I call this approach hyper real because when someone looks at one of my pictures it allows them to absorb days or weeks of observation in one look.  All the easily glossed over details in a subject interest me to the point of obsession.  In the subtlest details I can sense a subject’s essence, the energy that secures a person or thing’s existence in the world and makes them seem alive and fleeting. 

Like most humans, I am fascinated by things that glow, or sparkle in the light. Shiny objects appeal to my sensitivity in a very basic way, because they harness the brightness of all the light in their surroundings.  Looking closely at a reflective surface is like seeing into another word that is like our world, but follows its own absurd laws of physics.

Bicycling is a terrific inspiration because when you ride a bicycle, it feels like having a super power: flying, or running as fast as a horse.  The act of bicycling heightens your senses and helps you see the beauty of the world around you.  I also use mirrors and magnifying glasses when I paint.  They allows me to see things that would otherwise be impossible to look at. I sneak up on my subjects by looking at them from an unexpected viewpoint, and I find that every day objects become abstract and reveal hidden complexities about themselves.   Scale works in my compositions to allow things that are practically invisible due to their smallness to be massive in the viewers perception.  My favorite paintings are giant, and immersive, and reveal microcosms.  I make self portraits to tell the story of what it feels like to see what I see.  I do this with paint because it is not enough to simply describe what a thing looks like so it can be identified.  With paint, I can create an immediateness of material that allows the viewer to have distinct sensations, like the heat of the sunlight, the slickness of oily metal, or the tickle sweat dripping from the subjects pores.

My pictures satisfy the viewer by allowing them to have hyper powerful seeing abilities, overflowing their eyes with a flood of information, gushing into their other senses.  I want this sensation to stick with them and remind them how overwhelmingly beautiful and captivating everyday experiences can be.

 

Rachel, I find your work refreshing, honest and filled with personal experiences almost anyone can relate to.  Similar to images found on someone’s Tweeter feed or Facebook account your paintings emulate a sensation of how some one would document what happened to them on a particular day.

Your images in your work seems to be driven by the photograph of what you experiences, the composition, the color and the flattening of the depth within your paintings all are clear signs of this.  The painting titled Scuffed Chrome Fork clearly shows your investigation. With the tire, background and the brake being painted in such a flat manner and the bicycle fork being painted quite differently the attention to the highly glossy fragmented appearance of the fork – with painterly marks to represent the scuffs – you start to show, at times, how the image branch out pass what the photograph already gave you.

Sunny Afternoon on a Single Speed Bicycle seems to address a lot of the issues you where dealing with in Scuffed Chrome Fork and refines them. Single Speed Bicycle pushes your viewer to see what you and every other bike rider has experienced on a nice afternoon, it is rendered just enough to have a sense of reality, but also presents inside itself painting issues of movement, color, value and how to render form. Though the composition seems to still reference a snapshot one would take, as they are looking down at their handlebars at high speeds the colors used and the approach to how particular forms are rendered differently shows your progression away from the limitations photographs can cause as a foundation. Your painting Reflection refines the painted form even more than the Single Speed Bicycle and puts painterly issues aside and makes me wonder what your goal is; is it to make hyper real paintings and/or are you just refining your painting skills? 

The set of Nose Piercing paintings has some of the most redeeming elements within your work to me as a painter.  As a set the paintings show nice investigation into form, color, composition and also mark making. Your use of colors instead of black and white to create value shifts in the second painting shows a nice sense of realism over the first painting in the series. Even with a more painterly approach in the second painting it’s overall approach shows better form than the first.

With all the good that is going on within the Nose Piercing series, there is one thing I do not think was needed in either one of the paintings and that is the white splatter around the ball of the jewelry. I am not sure what if any significance it has to the image or the subject matter. At moments it becomes a part of the highlights found within the jewelry, but the majority of the time is sits on the surface as nothing more than a white Splatter. With such a painterly approach to both images I think the splatter becomes unnecessary and a bit overkill on making sure the viewer knows it’s a painting. Your use of the splatter in Stand Back! becomes the exact opposite. The splatter counteracts the realism of the portrait and achieves the movement and energy talked about within your artist statement and with this being said I believe Stand Back! to be one of your most successful pieces. Formally and conceptually I see this piece doing exactly what you drive to accomplish in all of your works.

Rachel I hope this helps you in some regards. Of course, this is the opinion of one person and I welcome a larger discussion to take place on matters discussed and matters over looked.