Untitled, 2012 Oil on linen, 96x120 in. Courtesy the artist (opposite) Untitled, 2012 Oil on linen, 96x120 in. Courtesy the artist Untitled, 2012 Oil on linen, 96x120 in. Courtesy the artist
me navigate hard situations. When found in one, usually any social situation for me, I pretend I am watching a T.V. show. Real people become character actors and the script is already written. The shift in my painting practice came after a two-year period where I just stopped painting. I couldn’t paint anymore. I was burned out and my story, my personal narrative was destroying me, and everything around me, my marriage, my home, my friendships. I rejected hair, cut mine very short, no make up, nothing that made me feel like I gave in to what “they wanted me to be”. My story was, the world is a dark dangerous place for women, everywhere you go, someone wants to destroy you and de-humanize you, take away your rights. My story was that I had to fight for everything. I decided to write. It started out as me writing a T.V. show. I got so many books on how to do this, and became frustrated. I took a class on line from Stanford continuing studies. This was the ah-ha moment for me. A turning point. I was in control of my story in a different more profound way. And if I wanted to change my perspective, I could. If I wanted to have memories I could, or re-write history. It was all up to me. I know this may sound simple, and lame, especially since I thought I was in control in the past, but this was finally something I understood in my bones. I would sit for hours in my house, which is where I worked, alone and shut out. I became a bit of a recluse, sorting this shit out. I stopped surfing, and ran instead because I could be alone. I wrote, I wrote my life out. One of the exercises the teacher had us do was to take out all the nouns. He was illustrating how important the person place or thing was, and how boring a story was if you did not give this enough description. But I found that what I had left was this amazing backdrop, this abstract place. The spaces in between the story we tell our selves and what is left? I wanted to explore this space. I explored it domestically first, politics always start in the home, and I wasn’t comfortable giving up that yet. The domestic space. It begins to fold in on you, the space becomes a character, sometimes harmonious, sometimes betraying, or oppressive. I had to keep pushing further until I didn’t tell myself a story anymore, and I could only see shape and color. It was like a narrative cleanse. CL: Looking at the piece, Red Black Yellow I see it as autobiographical, yet autonomous as a formal painting. The colors are primary and the shapes reference folk art, are quilt-like in their placement. Upon further noticing, it moves away from historical, folk references and fold in on itself. There is motion in the blocks and they seem to shake, the white sliver cutting into the center red square gives it an uneasy tilt. The dark red “L” shape in the foreground attempts to ground the painting, yet the white and grey in the center make all the other shapes hover above it. It flattens space while using shapes that slowly give off an unsettling depth. The tunnel effect created doesn’t stop at any location, your eyes move all over its surface. Was your construction of the shapes quickly laid out or did you come back in and make changes to them in order to add a vibration to the whole painting? Can you talk about your choice of colors for this piece? CR: Red Black Yellow is actually a simmered down version of the pastel piece. It’s a reduction of the pastel piece, which is derived from a domestic space. I like to stare at space, until everything becomes one surface, and there is always a moment out of the corner of my eye when I see a shift, or shake, something moving. I want to capture that life. The yellow is the light, the core and fire. There is always a source of light that is like a magnet for more light. I love red, black, yellow and various grays. These are the perfect colors to me. When I want to reduce a piece to its essence I rely heavily on this palette. But I love all colors. Squeezing a tube of paint, any color and mixing it to perfection is the same feeling I get when I am eating chocolate. CL: Do you feel like these pieces are still informed by representation? Do you approach them as familiar forms
that then become abstracted or do you feel like they start off abstracted and then find semi-familiar forms? Can you talk about your process of working abstractly and how you come up with these compositions? CR: My approach to every piece depends on my intention. With Red Black Yellow for example, my intention was to express a balance, a harmony with push and pull in one composition in its simplest form. Sometimes I think it’s like writing songs, sometimes the lyrics come first and the music follows, or sometimes the music forms the feeling I write words to. Sometimes it happens all at once. CL: In your painting, Blue Light C. Crop, I can’t help but be reminded of Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. The composition is so reminiscent of that painting, however the void is even more pronounced. Had you thought of that painting at all? Do you ever use other paintings a reference points or do your compositions come about more naturally? I find this painting to hint at absence, the way the light blue, yellow and orange bars are so boxed in. However you can look at the composition in another way as well, almost like a flag, the grey bar as the pole and the stripes of color as a flag. Is it important for people to be able to see these works in multiple ways? CR: I don’t like to reference other paintings. The only time I do this is for portraiture to study the way the old masters handle that little puddle of light in the corner of someone’s mouth, or in their tear duct. I can’t help but reference architecture though, and literature and the way space is described. This piece was all about the source of light. The way your eye followed layered color and space to get there. I don’t even think about people seeing these works, not when I’m painting them. CL: Many of your old works were created with house paint, acrylic and gouache. These new paintings are solely oil, can you tell us about what its like for using oil paints and how you think has influenced these pieces? CR: I wanted to capture light and shadow, and get the most saturated hues. Nothing compares to oil. I used to paint in oils a long time ago...I am coming back to something I used to know. The other thing about oil is the time you have to spend with a piece. It’s a different kind of time. With oils there is less control and you can set out with a plan and the oils are more alive and have a different temperament. You have to coddle the process. With acrylic and gouache, I had a formula that worked and worked fast. Fast isn’t as important to me right now. CL: Geometric patterns and shapes have always featured pretty heavily in your work along side powerful figurative images. With the figures removed and geometry taken center stage it becomes more playful and more open. Less like you have some message to convey to people and more like you are exploring your world. With the large size of these paintings its almost as if you and the viewers are the figurative elements that featured so prominently in your works from a few years ago. Do you ever feel like you are creating an actual space for yourself within these works at all or is it all more removed than that? CR: These are all about space. I remember once cleaning out our very cluttered kind of hoardy living room. I made a space that was just for space sake. I told my husband and daughter it was a sacred space and NOTHING WAS TO GO THERE. That space was held, and commanded respect as if it was an armoire or table. I since have put some chairs there, because the space was being exploited, but it’s clear of anything. It’s my space. I am exploring my space, my world, without the story I had in my past. And it’s wonderful. There is so much beauty I feel I have missed, just seeing things for what they are, out of my head. Changing my story, seeking out
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