Opening Reception on July 8 from 5-8 P.M.
Rae Stone is a painter and art educator living in Oklahoma City. She earned her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Oklahoma in 2016 with an emphasis in painting. Her work has been shown in multiple exhibitions spanning from her college years until now, including the 102nd Student Show at the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art and most recently in solo shows at Forma in Downtown Oklahoma City and Edmond Fine Arts Institute in Edmond, OK. Rae has worked as a high school art educator on the South Side of OKC for five years while growing her abstract language in large-scale mixed media paintings. Her work combines organic flowing shapes with hard lines to layer deep peaceful movement across the canvas. Rae currently works at Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center in their educa8on department focusing on tour and school programs.
The word that comes to mind when I think about my work and my paintings is “play”. I approach each piece with fluidity and lightness. I do not preplan or sketch out what I am going to do beforehand. The thought that every brushstroke is not final enables me to keep moving, and to keep exploring. This can be seen early in the process with the use of water and acrylic. Pouring thin layers of water and acrylic at the beginning of each piece allows for a loose genesis as the shapes and compositions come later in the process. Injecting this mixture early on allows the painting to take its own shape before the addition of brushed acrylic and spray paint. My paintings push the boundaries of traditional abstract expressionism by adding purposeful sharp shapes into liquid expressive backgrounds. Each painting will combine warm and cool neutrals with bold seemingly clashing colors to create areas of high contrast. Colors and shapes will blur the boundaries of background, middle ground and foreground by layering organic shapes, strong colors and lines to create layers that the viewer can't tell where each ends and begins. The pieces do not follow a narrative, each is instead a study in color and shape allowing the viewer to explore each piece without preconceived ideas of what it is about. I want the pieces to remain open to the viewer. The viewing experience is unable to be complete without the viewer standing in front of the painting interjecting meaning and personal experience onto the surface of the brushstrokes, and for them to assign emotions to color and fears or hopes into forms. The viewers are asked to be in the present as they experience the painting. Layers and small details take time to notice, forcing a slow pace of looking as the piece is digested bit by bit. The viewing experience is unable to be complete without the viewer standing in front of the painting interjecting meaning and personal experience onto the surface of the brushstrokes, and for them to assign emotions to color and fears or hopes into forms.
