ARTIST RACHAEL TARRAVECHIA
Rachael
Tarravechia
If These Walls Could Talk · Dinner Gallery, New York
b. 1995, United States. BFA painting, SCAD, 2018. Exhibited internationally in Hong Kong, Shanghai, France, Belgium, and Japan. Work in the permanent collection of The SCAD Museum of Art. Represented by Ceysson & Bénétière. Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
"I am a huge horror fan. It is a genre that directly reflects whatever societies' fears are at the time. In my paintings, I wish to create environments that at first seem eye-pleasing and happy but have enough subtleties within the piece to cause that feeling of peace to slowly fade away."
Tell us about your creative process.
My work investigates the threshold of private versus public, and aims to capture fleeting, intimate moments. Moments where the room was just previously occupied, and now there are no people, no phones, no cameras, yet the aura of humanity still lingers. I look through a lot of old Architectural Digest magazines from the late 70s and early 80s for inspiration, as well as using personal photographs, and making collages of these "dream rooms."
For the upcoming exhibition, If These Walls Could Talk, I used photographs of my grandma Jane's — and her husband Jerry's — bathroom. It feels very special to be able to paint an interior that I know very well and can imagine how the tiles feel on my bare feet.
"It felt appropriate to include a big knife that would be seen in an 80s slasher movie in my grandparents' 80s time capsule bathroom. A bathroom is a place where we are most vulnerable and exposed. Combining those two ideas felt like the right thing to do to create this narrative."
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing?
The isolation of the past year has given me a lot more time to create work, and really focus on what it is I want to convey with my work. I've always been interested in private, interior spaces, and I feel like our relationship with them changed drastically over the past year. It's given me a lot to think about and reflect on. I don't think the home will ever feel quite like it did before the pandemic, especially with how technology keeps progressing.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
Amanda Gorman — her work is both beautiful and inspiring. Her voice is clear, and strong, and speaks volumes.
Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how?
Definitely. The art world sometimes feels like a machine that forces you to continuously create new work so you can turn around and sell it. I struggle with trying to find a good work-life balance, and I still don't even find time for all the things I want to accomplish. The pressure of needing to create and sell work to be able to pay rent and buy food is a burden. I struggle to find the time to read art theory and fictional books to fuel my studio practice.
"I hope that other younger artists can look at my work and think, 'Oh, so I CAN do that.' That is what I think most of the time when I find artists that I really like. It is okay to use a lot of pink and glitter. I used to worry about alienating a male audience if my work comes off as too 'feminine,' but I do not really care about that now. I am making what I want to make."
"It is okay to use a lot of pink and glitter. I used to worry about alienating a male audience if my work comes off as too 'feminine,' but I do not really care about that now. I am making what I want to make."
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Feeling emotionally fulfilled. Being able to look around and see everything clearly. Feel clearly. I definitely think it's a mental state of being, as opposed to physical. It's something I strive to achieve.
Two artists working with maximalist, feminine, decorative surfaces — rhinestones, beads, pattern on pattern. The permission to make work that is unabashedly spectacular.
Two painters who approach the interior as a subject in its own right — pattern-dense, colour-saturated, psychologically loaded. The domestic as a serious visual and emotional arena.
Dario Argento's Suspiria — lurid colour, architectural menace, beauty as the threshold of violence. The horror movie as the genre that most honestly reflects what a society fears at a given moment.
The source material. Late 70s and early 80s interiors — the rooms she makes collages from, the "dream rooms" she builds her paintings toward. The specific quality of that era's domestic aspiration.
Ellis's novels — the pristine surface over violence, the luxury apartment as crime scene, the brand name as menace. The literary equivalent of what she is doing with interior spaces and knives.
Never Can Say Goodbye, 1975. And dollar stores — the specific aesthetic of cheap abundance, the glitter that costs almost nothing, the joy that is available to everyone. Pink as democracy.
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Rachael Tarravechia, Jerry, 2021, Acrylic and glitter on canvas
60 x 72 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Dinner Gallery
Cover photo by Mariam Khalil