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Rachel Sharpe, Lamb, 2023, oil on panel, 40 x 30 in. (102 x 76 cm)
Exhibition
Rachel Sharpe: Epidermal Dress
4 Mar 2023 – 15 Apr 2023
Regular hours
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 19:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 19:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 19:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 19:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 19:00
Free admission
Address
- 3311 E. Pico Blvd.
- Los Angeles
California - 90023
- United States
de boer is pleased to present Epidermal Dress, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles based painter Rachel Sharpe. Sharpe’s oil paintings present narrative vignettes that grapple with the corporeal nature of existence. The exhibition is on view from March 4 - April 15, 2023.
About
de boer is pleased to present Epidermal Dress, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles based painter Rachel Sharpe. Sharpe’s oil paintings present narrative vignettes that grapple with the corporeal nature of existence. The exhibition is on view from March 4 - April 15, 2023.
Sharpe paints highly particular - romantically dark pictures that emphasize philosophical queries. Simone Weil, a French philosopher and mystic has been an influential force in this body of work. Weil is known for saying that “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring...” In Sharpe’s portraits and still lives humanities mortality is exposed through paintings that are still, offering long pauses and quaint moments that cover and mask the emotional turmoil lurking behind.
Sharpe has a proclivity for painting raw meat. In Steak (2022) a sirloin sits on a plate basking in light but remains uncooked. In Lamb (2023) a lamb chop dangles from the fingers of a hand over a white fur rug. Both pictures are akin to the venetian art of painting flesh and Dutch vanitas. In Steady (2023) a tightly cropped painting depicts a pair of hands in leather gloves resting on the mane of a horse.
Sharpe’s paintings suggest beauty not only as a feeling of finality, but also as a guide to transcendental goodness. The works hinge on the duality of mortality. The labor intensive textural details, such as skin and flesh, in all their fragility, draw out both the dark and the strangeness of the unknown. This collection of work contends with the loss and pain of physical existence while finding transcendence in the beauty of sensation.
Rachel Sharpe is a Los Angeles based painter born in Seattle, Washington. Sharpe danced ballet professionally at the age of eleven and attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Sharpe is a self taught painter. Her detailed oil paintings often feature dramatic chiaroscuro lighting and cropped in compositions with an emphasis on corporeal and tactile textural elements.
