Ingo Fincke Gallery

Later this year, Ingo Fincke Gallery will be exhibiting a new collection of intriguing work by Rachel Deacon.

Rachel Deacon is an established British artist with three decades of work since her graduation from Chelsea School of Art in 1991.

Following her architectural home renovation, Rachel found herself looking for an elusive abstract painting to fill a large space in the kitchen. Over the last 30 years, she has made intentionally narrative paintings, paintings of women which retell and reimagine stories and poems.

What she wanted for this particular space however, was the lack of story or intention to be apparent. “I was looking for something to resonate on a purely aesthetic level, and create a mood as opposed to a message,” she says.

Rachel then embarked on a wonderful, snaking creative journey through what had initially seemed like an easy genre. At the start, she made an image that had some links to recognisable objects. As Picasso said, “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward, you can remove all traces of reality.” This was certainly true in the case of her first piece but less so later.

She says, “I realised quite early on that the work had to have something to say, some intent and that even though it is not always immediately apparent, I had no interest in the purely decorative space filler. I changed the viewing point of the work regularly during the process and only maintained that they were finished once they worked hung upside down and on various sides.”

These new paintings express a rhythmic arrangement of abstract geometric forms, overlaying of shapes and soft colour. The negative spaces work to create harmony and direction within the composition. Form and incomplete surface texture, bump into the intersecting spacial forms.

She is interested in the experience of finding images and form in and behind other shapes, and providing the viewers’ eye a way to manoeuvre through-out the surface of the canvas.

Rachel uses the precision of geometry to create an opposition to the simplicity of the gentle shapes. Muted colour acts alongside substantial contrast effecting a dynamically moving image. By looking into and around the composition of these paintings they continue to reveal components not yet realised and yet at the same time, are peaceful and create stillness to live alongside. For more details contact kira@ingofincke.com