Art Sync: Endlessly Knowable

RC: When beginning a painting, I might have a loose color idea or pull from drawings, but I never have a plan for its end. My late professor, Frank Bramblett, spoke about the importance of the unknown, telling his students what matters most is what we don’t know. And that’s really what it’s about: getting someplace I haven’t been before, arriving somewhere new. These discoveries usually show up in a color relationship, the handling of paint, in small, subtle ways. Growth happens slowly and reflection is important.

EJ: I love your color choices. Looking at them, I notice that earlier work used more transparency and that newer pieces are bolder through contrasting opacity and hue. Is your conversation with each piece becoming more layered and prolonged even as, to quote you from the Levinthal interview, you try to "keep painting to a place where the end might look like the beginning…"? What exactly do you mean by this interesting statement?

RC: I’m learning it’s not as straightforward as using a color, it’s also the pressure behind it. Consider songs that have been covered by various artists. They’re playing the same notes, singing the same words, but the sound can be totally unique. It’s the same with using color: a thick vs. thin application of the same yellow creates different spaces. I’m always responding to the way colors interact as they go on the canvas. My former teacher Stanley Whitney used to say,

EJ: If your paintings begin with studies of plant-like shapes, which make pleasing adjacent and overlapping vessels for color, do you follow the studies closely? Or do you continue to change composition and color as you start a canvas? What spurs editing and revision during your process?

RC: The drawings are always ahead of the paintings, and it’s almost impossible to translate the energy of a drawing into a painting. Surface and size changes don’t render the same way. The same is true when I force certain colors into a painting. (That’s not to say I don’t try.) There’s a Fairfield Porter quote about how overplanning leads to inevitable failure, and it resonates with me. I use drawings to help bolster color or strengthen a composition. But when I stick to a specific drawing too closely, the painting falls apart.

EJ: Fountain and Rosy March recall Clyfford Still's work, perhaps because these are bigger pieces that allow larger swathes of color to stand declaratively. Can you talk about the importance of the edges of shapes? They seem vital to your expression and sometimes depart from recalling foliage. When does thinking about movement enter the process?

EJ: How do you come up with titles for your pieces?

RC: I might be reading or listening to something and hear a couple words together that stick out to me. There are some words that just sound visual…I guess they’re called verbs. I keep a list of potential titles. Although the list is ongoing, the titles always come after the paintings are completed or near finished. Sometimes, I have to sit with a painting for a while before the title hits. I don’t put too much emphasis on them because I’m not trying to create a narrative. But I like the idea of a title giving the painting a nudge or adding some color.

EJ: Quoting the Levinthal interview once more, you say, "My struggle with beauty is always evolving." You describe preferring imperfection and "the idea of a slight dissonance, or that something could be simultaneously functional and incorrect." Have your thoughts on beauty changed since your last show at Gross McCleaf in 2021? Do you still look for beauty "that's a little harder to ascertain" and ponder the perception of beauty "as being too easy or ineffective?"

RC: There’s another Fairfield Porter quote I both love and mull over. He said, “When I paint, I think that what would satisfy me is to express what Bonnard said Renoir told him: make everything more beautiful.” The more I paint, the more kinds of beauty I see in the world. Even driving home on the dreariest day looks more colorful after painting. I try to put these discoveries back into the work.

Rebekah Callaghan received an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University after her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. She has had solo and group exhibitions in California and across the Mid-Atlantic region. Her works and interviews have been featured in Title Magazine, Two Coats of Paint and Art Journal. In 2020, Callaghan collaborated with Gorman Clothing, Australia to create a series of fabrics for a Gorman Clothing release of garments. She is represented by Maybaum Gallery in San Francisco and Gross McCleaf Gallery. Callaghan lives and works in Philadelphia.