Nationality The United States Role Painter Name Rachel Constantine | Years active 2000–present Occupation Artist | |
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Works Portraiture, landscape, still-life, figurative oil painting and drawing Website www.rachelconstantine.com | ||
Rachel Constantine (born 1973) is a Philadelphia-based realist / impressionist painter. Her figurative work serves as a metaphor for exploring her life experience, and she uses people, places, and objects closest to her to convey ongoing themes.
Contents
- Biography
- Education
- Works
- Beyond the Surface
- Interview
- Awards
- Exhibitions
- Noteworthy commissions and collections
- References
Constantine is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, five awards from the Woodmere Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and one from the Allied Artists of America in NYC. Her work has been exhibited in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia City Hall, the National Arts League in New York City, and the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, PA. Three of her paintings were featured in Alla Prima: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting, published in 2009 by Watson-Guptil, NY.
Constantine holds a certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and lives and works in Center City, Philadelphia.
Biography
Rachel Constantine was born in Philadelphia in 1973. In 2003, she received a certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she graduated with honors. Since then, she has participated in almost 50 exhibitions, won five awards from the Woodmere Art Museum in Pennsylvania, a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, eleven awards from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and another from Allied Artists for America in New York City.
In 2006, Constantine was invited to exhibit in Artworks Gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the local compliment to the Museum's exhibition: Wyeth: Memory and Magic. Her work can be found in The Vivian O. and Meyer P. Potamkin Collection in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and is featured in the new hard-cover illustrated book Alla Prima: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting written by Al Gury, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy's painting department.
Education
Works
In her Monument (2006), Constantine explores themes that are at once personal and timeless. The composition alludes both to the symbolic nature morte of the Baroque era and to the still lifes of Chardin. Her own sensibility adds poetry as well as an edge of modern anxiety and sadness.
In her Swan Pond (2002), the amount of thinner, oil, and so forth added to the paint has a profound effect on the quality of the brush calligraphy and the details in a painting. Broad, scumbled masses provide the setting for paint that has varying degrees of oil added to it. The gazebo, water reflection, and swans achieve their clarity because they are rendered with brushstrokes that are more thickly loaded with paint and also because that paint has a small amount of oil added. This follows the "lean to fat" concept of layering. The "fatter" final, detail touches sit on top with clarity due to the added oil, which created a sharper edge over the less oily paint beneath.
Beyond the Surface
Constantine made her curatorial debut at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, with Beyond the Surface, a group show featuring work from realist artist who include conceptual elements in their work along with their high levels of technical mastery. Artists chosen by Constantine include Daniel Sprick, Mario Robinson, Charles Morris, Rose Frantzen, Stephen Layne, Amy Kann, Renee Foulks, Stephen Early, and Stephen Cefalo.
Interview
Constantine's projects are typically sparked by a particular quality that she observes in someone that she feels compelled to try to capture and translate visually. She almost always paints people she knows because she prefers to have that emotional connection going in. Constantine says, "my paintings don’t necessarily aim to be “about” the person I’m working with; it’s the characteristics of the individual that I try to use as a vehicle to express larger concepts. Typically, I’ll bring subject into my studio, try my best to get them to relax and not “model,” and then photograph them in an attempt to achieve a specific pose that speaks to me. I try to have as few preconceptions as possible at this point, because my whole goal is to capture a “found moment.” Once the pose is set, I bring the model back for sittings, as needed."
Constantine thinks that classical painting is all about light; she finds in her own work that a piece’s success often rises and falls according to the accuracy of its depiction. she says, "in learning to paint light, one learns to capture emotion. That's why I rarely use artificial light sources; there’s a limitlessness about the color and range of natural light that artificial light just can’t reproduce. To my thinking, color in and of itself does not make art. There’s form, function and foundation there, it’s one thing to say something’s beautiful- because there’s beauty in almost everything, if you take the time to stop and really look hard enough- but it’s another to call it a work of art. So I tend to admire painters who are strong draftsmen first."