Rachel Beach Touchstone
Rachel Beach Touchstone SEPTEMBER 25, 2016 – MARCH 19, 2017
Visual Arts Center of New Jersey
bipartite construction. In Water Bearer, exuberant blue gestural brushwork contrasts with a more subdued herringbone pattern drawn in graphite. Three of the sculptures correspond to the primary colors red, yellow, and blue, and the fourth is black and white, further underscoring Beach’s elemental approach in this work. Painted surfaces may imply the hand of the artist, but Beach also offers literal representations of her hand in photographic “portraits” that are provocative additions to the installation. For many years the artist has painted on her hands and photographed them, as both an exploration of form and a meditation on the evolution of language and meaning. For Beach, pre-historic body painting represents “the beginning of communicating with paint.” The elemental shapes and lines she paints on hands relate to the abstract qualities of letters and recall the glyphs found in prehistoric cave paintings.
Rachel Beach is interested in the dialogue between the painted image
and the constructed object, and her work often navigates between physical and pictorial space. She conceived Touchstone as a cohesive installation in which all of the elements—wood sculptures, photographs, and videos— interact with one another to create a visual conversation about form, strength, and balance. In addition, the abstract shapes, signs, and gestures in the works suggest a rudimentary connection to language. Four painted wood sculptures, each composed of two distinct elements, stand in contrapposto at the center of the installation. Their hefty forms are stacked in a precise counterbalance—one solidly planted on the ground and the other hinged above it, as if defying gravity. Through this balanced arrangement of forms, Beach creates interesting voids within sculptures such as Eclipse, intending the empty space to have a physical presence. In a similar way she positions the sculptures to create spaces around and between them, prompting viewers to be more aware of their own bodies in relation to the objects and space in the gallery. At slightly larger than human scale, they invite an intimate dialogue with viewers. The repetitive marks, patterns, and textures on the sculpture’s surfaces reveal the artist’s touch, and her variations in color and technique emphasize their
These painted lines and shapes also explore the underlying structures Beach observes in her hands, and these investigations inform the colors and forms of the sculptures. She has created photo-sculpture constructions that combine life-size photographs of her hand with small painted wood forms, poetically juxtaposing objects with images of the hand that made them. These pieces establish a kind of semiotic call and response between the painted shapes on the hands and the painted wood structures attached to the framed photographs. Displayed serially, they resemble the linear organization of hieroglyphs or characters into words and ideas. Several of the photographs are scaled up—almost to the size of a human figure—making them interesting foils for the freestanding sculptures. In each of three large diptychs, pictures of the artist’s painted hand are paired as near mirror images, echoing the binary composition of the sculptures and reinforcing Beach’s ideas about duality and balance. These monumental images confront viewers with their human presence and invite further reflection on the relationship of image to object. Beach draws a connection between her large sculptures and competitive stone lifting and includes several small screens displaying GIFs made from found video footage of stone lifters. For Beach, these competitive “strongmen” personify a vital aspect of her work—the seeming impossibility of weighted forms hinging on fragile points of balance. She notes, “The simple but powerful tipping motion isolated in the moment of lift speaks to something primal in human nature and highlights the relationship of body to weight, and vulnerability to strength.” Beach offers these videos as touchstones for viewing the other works in the exhibition. Mary Birmingham, Curator
Apostrophe
Eclipse
Magenta Hand
Way Finder
Exhibition Checklist Sculptures
Archival Photographic Prints
Framed Photographs with Painted Wood Constructions
Beta Blocker, 2016 Acrylic, oil, plywood 79 x 28 x 25 inches
Apostrophe, 2016 Caron, 2016 Cedilla, 2016 Em Dash, 2016 Parenthesis, 2016 Up Tack, 2016 72 x 48 inches (each)
Cream Hand, 2016 9.25 x 16.25 x 1.25 inches
Ochre Hand, 2016 19 x 10 x 1.25 inches
Dark Green Hand, 2016 17.25 x 11.25 x 1.25 inches
Olive Hand, 2016 20.5 x 9.25 x 1.25 inches
Grey Blue Hand, 2016 29.75 x 18.25 x 1.25 inches
Rust Hand, 2016 14.25 x 9.25 x 1.25 inches
Atlas Lift, 2016 10 second loop
Grey Hand, 2016 20.5 x 9.25 x 1.25 inches
Violet Hand, 2016 12.75 x 15.75 x 1.25 inches
Island Lift, 2016 5 second loop
Magenta Hand, 2016 14.75 x 9.25 x 1.25 inches
Yellow Hand, 2016 11.25 x 16 x 1.25 inches
Square Lift, 2016 3 second loop
Navy Hand, 2016 18 x 9.25 x 1.25 inches
Eclipse, 2016 Acrylic, oil, acrylic compound, plywood 80 x 30 x 24 inches Water Bearer, 2016 Acrylic, pastel, graphite, plywood 76 x 42 x 22 inches Way Finder, 2016 Acrylic, metal, acrylic compound, cement, plywood 78 x 31 x 23 inches
Videos
Highland Lift, 2016 10 second loop
Rachel Beach Touchstone The artist wishes to acknowledge and thank: Bartek Jablonski for technical assistance, Sean Fader and Luis Perez for photo expertise, Justine Jablonska for video editing and Baboo and Neil Kumar at Baboo Digital for fine art printing services and generous support. Installation Photography: Etienne Frossard Opposite: Caron