Rebekah Goldstein
My paintings depict imagined structures and spaces. As they
ignore laws of gravity and perspective, these structures can exist
only within the world of a painting. I draw on imagery both from
my immediate surroundings—parts of architecture, landscape,
textiles, and human form—and art history. This disparate imagery
is integrated into my work through the process of painting. What
was once recognizable becomes increasingly ambiguous and
idiosyncratic.
Throughout a body of work, I build up my pictorial language
with a specific set of symbols, shapes, forms, and colors. These
fragments become recurring characters. In a single painting I
reassemble, fracture, and choreograph these visual elements,
working improvisationally until I arrive at an image held
together by its internal logic. The boundary between depiction
and the abstract is central to my investigation, as is creating
an image that fluctuates between the familiar and the
indecipherable.