Rachel Mudrosky 
4th Year, Major in Studio Arts

Untitled
48″ x 60″
Oil on canvas
2020

Artist Statement:

As a fourth-year student majoring in studio arts, I focus on figuration and abstraction in my body of work. Currently exploring performative and experimental modes of expression, my interest in work which emphasizes the materiality of an image-making process is piqued; treatment of medium and surface holds a strong significance and creates moments of tension as well as elation. I see my artmaking process as a tactile endeavor. I seek to interact with the senses, ultimately creating an image which is both visceral and sincere.

Untitled was made this year, as I am currently taking a course in abstract painting – an area of interest and uncertainty for me. Painting is a fluid and expressive process which I enjoy very much, while still feeling challenged by it to a point of deep discomfort. Regardless of how much I paint, the doubt and hesitation that might come with a first painting still lingers. Untitled represents the beginning of a turning point: The moment where this uncertainty transforms into an experimental exploration, the start of an untroubled mode of expression which focuses on process and play. Often looking at change in my greater body of work, I underline the unfixed nature of bodies and states over time through fragmentation, incompleteness, and selective rendering. This is most explicit in other works of mine which are created through the medium of drawing. Exploring this approach through abstract painting has challenged me to expand my perspectives surrounding treatment of medium and surface as I paint.

The notion of transformation is embodied through the fluid movement of forms in this painting; each one interacting with the other, reshaping with every contact. Through gestural brushwork, I seek to create a space that is both tangible and beyond reach, inviting and grim. Light pierces through darker layers, transfiguring the surface and one’s encounter with it. Striving to create images that are detailed and imprecise all at once, this inclination towards the cryptic and personal often results in work which emanates a sense of melancholia. I rely on intuitive expression as a means of creating in a genuine way, and to allow visual imagery of an otherwise inaccessible place to emerge authentically.