Fiona Rae

Fiona Rae
Untitled (one on brown)
1989
oil and pencil on canvas
84 x 78 inches

Fiona Rae - written by Max Presneill

March 27, 2020

It has been some years since I have really looked at the paintings of Fiona Rae. In acknowledging the influence she had in my early development as a painter and so deciding to write something about this I went back to source and brought up her website. Jumping straight to the pages of her early career I was immediately struck by just how much I had learned from her, how much has stuck and continues to be unconsciously reflected in my own painting even now. This is not only about aesthetics. We share a deep love of bold and often ‘uncouth' color and an obvious sense of organizing the picture plane. The placement of autonomous elements pervades in both of us as well as a myriad of approaches and techniques.

Beyond this though, Rae introduced a method for approaching abstraction that had previously felt ‘inauthentic’ to me in some way. Taking elements from the world and transcribing them via the materiality of the paint and an acute awareness of the relationship between recognition and from, its boundaries and limitations, as well as the understanding of how purely abstract passages and applications can both inform the derived parts as well as alter the very nature of the purpose of surface, and the potential for reading the art work. This way of thinking allowed me to find a route towards abstraction for myself, one that validated the quality of potential interpretations for myself.

The sheer exuberant application of paint, in such a variety of methods taught me the value of an extended toolbox as well as a relationship between contemporary painting and its full history through the ages - what all painters share down the passage of time. There is a subtle and complex interaction with the production of meaning and this reflection of the historical interpretations of all aspects of painting, from the ‘autonomy’ of the gesture, the ‘accident’ of the allowed drip, the indulgence of desire, and the power of color.

The way her motifs and marks hover in a unified spatial plane has been an influence on my understanding of space and directly to my curatorial decisions when placing art in exhibitions - the web of meanings impacted by placement and proximity, sight-lines and overlaps. Her sense of scale, related both to the size of the viewers body but also to an implied extension beyond the painting’s edge situate these ‘individual’ marks in a way that I continue to recognize in both my painting and my curation.

It was an exciting visit to her website, if humbling too. I was re-energized by seeing these early works but slightly miffed with myself. I had thought I had moved into a mature stage of my practice. One which acknowledged influences but beat its own path through the world, that was ‘mine’ alone somehow. It is a useful awakening to realize that some formative elements in ones life are never far from the surface, that made me who I am and helped give me the tools to still be engaged and active in this endeavor over 30 years later….

Rembrandt Self-Portraits

Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar

1959

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Rembrandt Self-Portraits - written by Max Presneill

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn  (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker born 1606 in the Dutch Republic, now the Netherlands, to a miller and a baker’s daughter. Acknowledged for his talent at any early age by the time he was 18 or 19 he had opened his own studio after serving his apprenticeships. Financial mismanagement and struggles throughout his life, despite his acclaimed early and continued success as an artist, by living beyond his means, left him to die a pauper in 1669, aged 63.

"Whenever I see a Frans Hals, I feel like painting; whenever I see a Rembrandt, I feel like giving up.” Max Liebermann, painter.

Self Portrait

1658

The Frick Collection, New York

Rembrandt produced a series of startling self-portraits during his entire career. Modern scholarship puts his self-portrait output at around 40 paintings, with many other versions being copies made by his students as a teaching device. From the youthful and questioning reflection of his early work to his later powerful self analysis we can trace his physical and perhaps even his psychological progress towards death. His weathered features of the later portraits reflect ourselves back, in a sympathetic recognition of the process of life, the only thing we all share (with the possible exception of taxes, of course), that unites us in our humanity.

Using the chiaroscuro technique, probably discovered by Rembrandt through the work of Caravaggio and his Dutch Caravaggisti, the portraits are dramatic and bold. The play of light and deep shadow is theatrical but somber and thoughtful. Moving from an earlier style of smooth layering of paint he increasingly allowed a more disruptive impasto technique to mimic the wear and tear of his years. These works are tactile. They cause many painters an urge to touch the surface, to wonder if they are edible…

By the 1650s he was utilizing a deeper and richer palette, applied with a looser more confidence hand, with brushstrokes increasingly evident. The play of light becomes more dramatic. In his own time these works were often seen as coarse, anti-fashion, but still the hand of a Master. When viewing these works up close we can see the corporeal nature of the brushwork, uneven, disjointed, abstracted - while one step backs gives us an illusionistic phenomena of astounding clarity.

They are brutally honest paintings. No glamor or self-deception. No ego preening away or adjustments for vanity. Just intense looking and describing.

Self-portrait

1630 (when he was 24 yrs old)

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Bearing the weight of his past, a history of struggles, loves and losses, he sits alone, aware. There is a sense of his own mortality in each brushstroke. The decline of the physical body is mirrored with the thickening of paint, looser skinned, uneven and broken. Like looking into a mirror and not recognizing the person looking back at you - this is the genuine experience of aging, of time slipping away and the body's betrayal of ones youth.

Did this scrutiny allow him to accept the passing of his time a little easier. Does it help ours? For me, these paintings reaffirm the necessity of acceptance. They help ease the passage of time in that they remind me that this recognition of mortality is what it means to be human and self-aware. It is the basis of our cognition and why we can love life so poignantly.