Rebecca Rutstein

March 31 - May 29, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2004
REBECCA RUTSTEIN “LOVE & SUBDUCTION” – New Paintings
Philadelphia, PA - The Bridgette Mayer Gallery is pleased to present its second solo exhibition of Philadelphia artist Rebecca Rutstein. “Love & Subduction” will run from March 31 – May 29, 2004 with an opening reception Friday, April 2nd from 6:00-8:30 p.m. The exhibition will feature a series of new 24” square paintings on canvas and several large 48” square paintings on wood started during a summer residency in Banff, Canada.

Rebecca Rutstein is a passionate, volatile and emotional person. Rutstein is passionate about life – people, events, subject and meaning. For the past seven years Rutstein has explored the subject of geology. Themes such as plate tectonics, formation of mountain ranges, volcanoes, fossilization and subduction have, to this artist, been a mirror for how life functions in a larger sense and have been explored as metaphors for looking at interpersonal relationships.

In her newest paintings, Rutstein continues to explore this interest and although the themes are consistent, there has been a dramatic shift in the feeling and execution of the paintings.

Rutstein has eliminated her use of a white ground of oil paint and pastel palette and has replaced it with a highly charged, rich palette of acrylic paint. Each painting is specific in color and content and incorporates unique silk-screened diagrams. The diagrams are often hand drawn or created digitally as vector-diagrams. There is a strong interplay of mechanical and hand drawn lines as well as a surface quality of painterliness juxtaposed with flat, graphic areas of color. The paintings combine drawing, painting, design, use of the computer and silk screening.

Compositions in the new works are complex and layered – (the artist has expressed that she thinks of the process of layering paint on paint as being similar to the geologic process of stratification.) They also have a much more hard-edged quality and are less “abstract-expressionistic” like earlier works.

Also inherent in the new works is a sense of humor and lightness about subject and the process of painting. In some of the works such as “dreaming of hoodoos and emerald skies”, the artist thickly squeezes paint onto the surface creating a dimensional drawing. Other paintings feature areas of shiny glaze, metallic paint and scraping or squeeging of paint on the surface. Playful personal icons appear as subject in some works such as “crazy for you” which features several hundred painted shoes that the artist has worn over the years.

Rebecca Rutstein received her M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 and her B.F.A. from Cornell University. The artist has completed several residencies including a recent one at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada and a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery and she will be featured in upcoming solo shows at the List Gallery, Swarthmore College in the fall of 2004 and also at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in the fall of 2005. In 2002 Rutstein also had a solo exhibit at the Fleisher Art Memorial during their Challenge Series.
“Love & Subduction” will run through May 29, 2004. The artist will be present at the opening reception Friday, April 2nd from 6:00-8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 p.m., other days by appointment. For additional information please contact Bridgette Mayer, 215.413.8893 Fax 215.413.2283
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