Rachael Wren
Site Lines
The meld of memory and landscape. Of line and light.
03/23/23 - 05/12/23
Anniversary, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 36” x 36”
Site Lines
Wren’s work creates an atmosphere that rises and expands into the space between the viewer and the painting. A quiet staccato rhythm of color and shape with the energy of water rippling. The paintings are a sensory portrait of place and memory. The gridlines that scaffold the colors and shapes give the impression of mapping but they are mapping intangibles: the movement of the air, the warmth of the sun, the sound of leaves rustling.
Site Lines, Wren’s current show at The Shirley Project Space is presented in collaboration with Rick Wester Fine Art. The show builds on the success of her Chelsea solo show Still It Grows. In Site Lines, Wren presents 6 new paintings and for the first time, a site specific installation: Linelight.
The suite of paintings have Wren’s signature style. Each painting has a delicate, mathematical framework that supports Wren’s investigations of line, color and space. Wren builds a painting that is lush and layered with indeterminate depth. She creates her unique pictoral space through techniques of perspective, color theory and through the actual layering of her painted marks. Time plays an essential role, the depth of brushstrokes layered over months (and in some cases years) in each painting shows Wren’s commitment to her craft.
Linelight investigates similar sensory themes as Wren’s paintings but in space. Viewers peer at a painted mural through a cubic grid of 576 embroidery threads spanning a gallery alcove. The accumulation of lines in space has a shimmering effect. There is a feeling of atmospheric perspective but with literal depth. The work beckons the viewer to take a closer look while the matrix of strings hold the viewers at bay. Similarly, Wren’s painting are inviting; their beauty and airiness pull the viewer in. At the same time, the density of marks and shifting planes make one unsure of how to enter their spaces. This gentle push and pull creates a distance that allows mystery and contemplation. The work in Site Lines is at once quiet and serene, while also optically dynamic and charged with nature and its life force.
Linelight, 2023, Site-specific installation, house paint, embroidery thread and white nails, 6’ x 6’ x 6’
Ebb and Flow, 2023, Oil on Linen, 36” x 36”
Holding Place, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 72” x 72”
Linger, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 30” x 30”
Magic Hour, 2022, Oil on Linen, 36” x 36”
Nightfall, 2022, Oil on Linen, 48” x 48”
Artist Bio
Rachael Wren is a Brooklyn based painter whose atmospheric abstractions have their source in both landscape and memory. Rachael received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Washington. She believes that the dense, ever-present atmosphere of Seattle that she experienced during graduate school seeped into her, and still informs her paintings.
Rachael has had solo shows at Rick Wester Fine Art, Wave Hill, The String Room Gallery at Wells College, The Painting Center, Schema Projects, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Providence College. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the National Academy Museum, Garis & Hahn, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, and Trestle Gallery, among many others.
Rachael is the recipient of the Julius Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy Museum and an Aljira Fellowship. She has been awarded residencies at Emerson Landing, Chashama North, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Anderson Center, and the Artist House at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
