Maybe This Will Stop The Tide, 18” x 20”, oil on linen, 2010
Relative Safety, 18” x 20”, oil on linen, 2010
They Stood Their Ground, 42″ x 60″, oil on canvas, 2010
Warehouse Waiting Game, 48″ x 60″, oil on canvas, 2010
No Swimming, 42″ x 48″, oil on canvas, 2010
Artist’s Statement
The people in my paintings are unsettled. They perch on rooftops, power lines, and fire escapes, inhabiting dreamlike, imaginary cities. Expectations cloud their vision, and, like people in a magical realist novel, they unquestioningly accept the absurd as normal.
Although I use the visual language of a perceptual painter, I mainly work from memories, filtering experiences and bits of autobiography into invented scenarios that would be unlikely, if not impossible, in the real world. Maintaining an element of fiction is important to me because I am trying to describe psychological places, where characters’ inner worlds shape the physical space and architecture around them. For me, the illogical situations my characters find themselves in embody the frustration of not being able to see clearly.
I work mainly from my imagination; with the help of mirrors, studies from life, and photographs. I usually start with an improvised drawing, through which the imagery evolves organically and spontaneously. The drawings suggest a loose narrative for the paintings – not a sequential story, but a series of related vignettes about the same or similar characters.
Contact
website: www.rebeccalitt.com
email: beccalitt@mac.com