Visit with Rebeca Raney
Rebeca Raney gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the process of making her large-scale silk paintings for her two-person show with Nefertiti Jenkins, Ghosts in the Garden.
Rebeca Raney’s large-scale Crêpe de Chine silk paintings depict a jubilant congregation of characters rendered with jewel-toned dye in a sentient unplaceable forest of her own creation.
The "everything" is what I sought to paint in these twin paintings. Ghosts and memories and big lost and found love. Everything that is optimistic about the meaning and miracle that exists within the joyful, relentless passing of time.
Rebeca Raney
Amongst the women, ghosts, dogs, and daisies, the artist notably punctuates the space with illustrations of pencils, a deliberate although disembodied reminder of the artist as authoritarian overseer of the painting’s kaleidoscopic sprawl.
Utilizing a process of painting invisible resist onto silk, which cordons off areas where no dye will penetrate, Rebeca’s linework and decisions are irreversible. Each painted line unfurls possible compositions, with no revisions.
The reason I love making silk paintings is that there is almost no opportunity to course-correct. Instead, mistakes are folded into the composition with tender acceptance.
Rebeca Raney
The painting holds as a record of Raney’s touch, and as an optimistic container for time, finding meaning and marvel within the blissful, relentless passing of each day.
