Rebecca Rich

Rebecca Rich lives and works in Los Angeles.

Born in New York, she received a BA from Occidental College and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University.

Painting is a place where I explore the duality of the self and the unknown as it relates to the concept of the perpetual present. My work begins with marks and accumulated layers that create thresholds, transitions, and intentional movements. They reach towards form but never come into complete being. The continuous space pushes outward toward the edge and back inward, yet the center never truly becomes a center. The tension between the textural surface and the underlying composition marks a knowable space but presents the world as elusive and changing, indeterminate and unstable. This simultaneity, the feeling of ungroundedness or lack of resolution, is an invitation to accept a center that is inherently off balance, but within an energy that is contained.

My work reflects on the passage of time, and the unfolding of understanding and knowing. The accumulation shows traces of concurrent narratives, yet the work doesn’t resolve itself and won’t sit still. Through color, I challenge the notion of hierarchy, objectivity, and the rules governing its use. I use color and its absence to create transitions—places to rest and reflect, and then continue seeking. Permanent resting spaces are actively revealed through sequences and forms that come together, splinter or oppose each other. The work creates a state of flux, a sense of moving forward in time, in motion, but perfectly still.

The video and language based works use text in order for the viewer to create an abstract narrative. I transcribe my dreams and use that recounted language as the jumping off point. I then edit out all traces of “me”—pronouns, nouns and specifics—in order to make the text as open as possible. The language is a direct link from the universal consciousness that connects us all and the shared space we inhabit. Through erasure, proximity, scale and composition, the narrative will change with repeated viewings. The improvisation of looking and the spontaneity of forming a story will evoke an encounter between the other and the self. This body of work reflects back to the viewer that which is already inside of them, and is awakened through the experience of the piece. The language comes to me but it isn’t mine, I act as a translator, transforming an unspoken language into another. Image as language, language as image. 

Until I started working with my dreams they spoke an unknown language that I felt estranged from and isolated by. Dreams reveal a hidden place between symbol and language. They have their own  logic and their own rules, which connect the psyche to the self and make the unconscious conscious.  In my paintings, the images and the viewer's response to them creates an interdependency and a dialogue. The words emerge from a private language, yet they represent the collective and belong to all of us in some way. Mining the unconscious is an intimate practice that brings to the surface the deepest and most mysterious parts of the self. My recounted language is as unfamiliar to me as a channeled language, yet I know it is the most genuine and vulnerable part of me. My intention is to be a faithful translator of this work, to understand myself and hopefully allow the viewer some deeper understanding of their deepest self.

Instagram: @rebeccarich_studio