NURTUREart 2010/11 Yearbook

WE ARE: Rachel Budde August 10 - 15.

Budde develops a primordial female archetype of her invention through many paintings in order to understand her complexity and multi-dimensionality. The painting series is something of an effort to redeem the clichéd earth goddess through the foregrounding of a more sinister or unpredictable persona, as reflected in the grin of the Trickster, that evokes a more active, if not paradoxical role for the classic earth mother. Visually, the archetype is comprised of influences from Pop culture as well as from Pre-Historic ‘Venus’ figurines and Hindu Tantric painting. Her materials are informed by her studies of Tibetan Thangka painting and a pinstriper’s graphic line work done on her father’s cars and motorcycles, which provided an early childhood inspiration. Gouache and gold leaf are primarily used on paper both related to the everyday 8 x 11”, and to sacred, illuminated text or scroll masterpieces—in the grey area between ‘high’ and ‘low’ where she finds fertile ground. Her images are made not only to counter the images she is bombarded with in our mediated world, but to channel an energy she feels around and within her.