Artists Statement
We evolve within a state of cultural influence in which the things we perceive to be important that look like an ideal are often built upon faulty, weak and diseased foundations set forward and reinforced within society and pop culture. We are made to fall in love with an arbitrary set of stereotypes, physical ideals, or cultural goals that can be fully twisted and often deeply damaging to us. Yet there is still love for those things. My last body of work entitled “Crush”, was an exploration of these themes.
The next progression in this dialogue is to delve into what happens when we come to the other side of the social constructs, the fairytales that we are raised with. Feminine power and sexuality find new ground. Into this situation comes an urgency to assert the female gaze. The female gaze must find a stronger manifestation, it is too often expressed as a reinterpretation of the male gaze.
Despite my calling to language, symbol, and figure, the work must have its own life beyond language. The material of the paint itself and the lushness of the determined line have their own power of meaning. The work originates in words and symbols but it does not conclude in a form that can be expressed in language.
We evolve within a state of cultural influence in which the things we perceive to be important that look like an ideal are often built upon faulty, weak and diseased foundations set forward and reinforced within society and pop culture. We are made to fall in love with an arbitrary set of stereotypes, physical ideals, or cultural goals that can be fully twisted and often deeply damaging to us. Yet there is still love for those things. My last body of work entitled “Crush”, was an exploration of these themes.
The next progression in this dialogue is to delve into what happens when we come to the other side of the social constructs, the fairytales that we are raised with. Feminine power and sexuality find new ground. Into this situation comes an urgency to assert the female gaze. The female gaze must find a stronger manifestation, it is too often expressed as a reinterpretation of the male gaze.
Despite my calling to language, symbol, and figure, the work must have its own life beyond language. The material of the paint itself and the lushness of the determined line have their own power of meaning. The work originates in words and symbols but it does not conclude in a form that can be expressed in language.
Bio:
Rebecca Leveille is a contemporary artist working in a figurative mode. Freely mining both art historical sources and contemporary painting she cites influences ranging from Titian to Walter Robinson, from Fragonard to Kara Walker. Her practice involves a translation of pictorial practices and inner mythologies through her distinctive ability to compose lyrically gestured figures largely from imagination. Leveille’s facility with the figure and drawing was the center of her successes as an illustrator in the 1990’s until 2011( working under the name Rebecca Guay). She was a celebrated figure in comics and fantasy publishing, working closely with the iconic Denis Kitchen as her agent ( Kitchen Sink Press) for a number of years, until 2011 at which time she left commercial work to pursue personal painting.
Breaking out of the prescriptive narrative mode of illustration, her relationship to language persists yet the narrative potentials in her current work are subverted by her determination to create that which is poetic rather than literal. These personally driven explorations delve into sensuality, the female gaze, media imagery, and Art World social phenomena.She often leans into and appropriates her past identity as a creator OF pop culture as a tool to examine the myth and influence of culture within her current work.
A constant subtext of Leveille’s art is her relationship to materials. Thick paint forms the confident wide lines of the drawing in her oils. Washes drift below impastos. Pencil and graphite powder bear force of mark and streak. The assertion of materials never overwhelms the creation of pictures yet it forms an ever-present and voluptuous tactility with meanings of its own.
Leveille’s art has garnered words of praise from Jerry Saltz, Walter Robinson, and Peter Frank. Her work has been exhibited around the country including several previous group shows with the Untitled Space, The LBIF Annual Drawing Exhibition 2017 Juried by the Whitney Museum's Jane Panetta and The Spring Break Art Show 2018.
Additional group shows include the Allentown Museum of Art, PA, Delaware Art Museum, DE, MA, Jonathan Levine Gallery, NY, Abend Gallery, CO, the Corey Helford Gallery, LA, and The Center for Contemporary Art, Sante Fe, NM.
Other exhibitions include solo shows at: Corey Helford Gallery, LA, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, NY, and the Michelson Gallery, MA. She is a finalist for the 2019 Bennet Prize and will have a number of works touring through 2021 with the Muskegon Museum.
Rebecca Leveille ,and her husband artist Matthew Mitchell , currently divide their time between studios in New York City and Savannah GA