Absence
Works by Rachel Rinker and Katie Fenske
April 2-May 7, 2017
Reception: Friday, April 7, 6-9 pm
Katie Fenske and Rachel Rinker conjure up Absence in their photographs and paintings. Katie directly focuses on absence in her chilly photographs of homes' exteriors, often including empty lawn chairs or a discarded toy. Her photographs offer a view of her own sense of place here in Greenville. Her eerily atmospheric images offer straightforward narrations, defining absence as homes that are people containers devoid of people.
Rachel Rinker bases her paintings on photo sketches she makes at local gatherings of her family and friends. Her paintings are loosely executed as she frantically works to capture the warmth and comradery of these gatherings. Like Katie, Rachel concentrates primarily on the exterior of homes as the party is over. Her paintings include people, but the figures appear to be unraveling as they leave the close-knit event to disappear into their individual lives. The paintings narrate the process of absence as the viewer experiences friends and family dissolving, leaving only warm waves of memories.
Because Rachel sketches with photos, she and Katie share the point of view of the observer, standing in the driveway or yard of the homes. Katie's photographs conjure absence as a lonely, still moment. Rachel conjures absence as the process of leaving. Both present us with narrations to be completed through our own experiences with absence.
Katie is a young, self-taught artist with the mastery of experience. Rachel is a recent Clemson University BFA in Art graduate. Absence is their first professional gallery exhibition.
RIVERWORKS Gallery is operated by and for the faculty and students of the Department of Visual Arts at Greenville Technical College. RIVERWORKS Gallery is located at 300 River Street, Suite 202, along the scenic Reedy River in downtown Greenville, SC.
For more information, call:
Fleming Markel, Director
RIVERWORKS Gallery
(864) 271-0679 or email
fleming.markel@gvltec.edu
or visit www.gvltec.edu/dva/
For more information about Clemson's BFA in Art Program, and
to apply, please go to: http://www.clemson.edu/degrees/art.
To
learn more about Clemson University's Master of Fine Arts in Art program and to
apply, please go to: http://www.clemson.edu/graduate/academics/program-details.html?m_id=Visual-Arts.
