I Lift My Lamp

Oil on panel.

My paintings urge the eye and the mind to wander within space, form, light and movement.   They skirt between abstraction and representation, reveling in the fluidity of visual perception.  Instead of prescribing content, they hint at the identifiable while remaining elusive. Indulging in the mystery, uncertainty and openness of our visual experience, they use abstraction to be suggestive and to engage the viewer's imagination.

I paint with a squeegee and unearth images by pushing around layers of transparent paint. This process is physical and playful, like improvisational dance.  I add paint with a brush and I throw paint and mediums at the panel. Then, with varied speed, pressure and gesture, I push over those marks with the squeegee. The edge of the squeegee veils the paint ‘below’ while creating its own sculptural mark ‘above’.  I erase entire paintings frequently and rely on chance for every mark.

When paint moves and combines under pressure from the squeegee blade, it mixes or blends based on its material properties.  Oil paint is made up of different pigments and binders. Some paint colors are more slippery than others and some colors are extremely sticky.  When they mix, they form visual passages that echo the natural world because of the way the paints react to one another. This alchemical process creates strange spaces, figures and moments of light that could have never been planned. 
– Rachel Ostrow, 2020