GERRI RACHINS:
UNFAMILIAR CREATURES
June 17th - July 30th, 2021
Gerri Rachins, Unfamiliar Creature 0360, 2017, Flashe and ink on Saunders Waterford paper, 30 x 22 inches, 76.2 x 55.9 cm
Jason McCoy Gallery is pleased to present the virtual exhibition UNFAMILIAR CREATURES, a cohesive body of drawings by the Boston-based abstract painter GERRI RACHINS.
Completed in the summer of 2017, the seven works in this series mark a particular endeavor within the artist’s oeuvre, especially in regard to imagery and the materials involved. This is largely due to the underlying process, which as the artist explains, was highly unusual for her. She notes: “During the summer of 2017, I would travel repeatedly to the beaches of Cape Cod, blank pieces of watercolor paper in hand. After inserting the latter into the salty water of the Atlantic Ocean, I grasped all of the surrounding seaweed. I would bring it back to the sand, using the wet paper. Then, I painted the actual seaweed with ink that I had brought with me from the studio and used it to print images. Upon returning to my studio, I would create an appropriate hue of blue or blue-gray ink to cover all and later seek out a larger shape from the seaweed palimpsest to paint with black Flashe.”
Left: Gerri Rachins, Unfamiliar Creature 0396, 2017, Flashe and ink on Saunders Waterford paper, Right: Gerri Rachins, Unfamiliar Creature 0400, 2017, Flashe and ink on Saunders Waterford paper, Each: 30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
In other words, each of the Unfamiliar Creatures originated in Rachins’ direct interaction with the ocean and the subsequent combining of materials that were natural to the environment (and readily available), such as water and seaweed, with those she had brought with her from the studio (paper and ink). The results are striking compositions that manifest as hybrids. They are part reinvented monotype, in that the seaweed functioned somewhat like an inked-up printing plate. They also allude to painting in that form is excavated through color. In fact, it is the latter step that elevates the works from being reflections of a spontaneous encounter of unlike ingredients and transforms them into abstract compositions that are both highly intuitive and suggestive. They appear illusive, remaining beyond our clear grasp. Are these creatures manifesting or dissolving? And what are we looking at? Are these microbes, body parts, or shaded living organisms?
It was due to their figurative quality, which rendered them highly unusual with Rachins’ oeuvre, that prompted the artist to store these works away in her flat file, where they remained hidden for several years. It was only after finding inspiration in the following words by the Japanese writer Kōbō Abe, taken from his novel “The Face of Another” (1964) and used for the gallery’s Drawing Challenge XXI earlier this spring, that Rachins revisited this series:
“Still, the one who best understands the significance of light is not the electrician, not the painter, not the photographer, but the man who lost his sight in adulthood. There must be the wisdom of deficiency in deficiency, just as there is the wisdom of plenty in plenty.”
Gerri Rachins, Unfamiliar Creature 0343, 2017, Flashe and ink on Saunders Waterford paper, 30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
It is our pleasure to celebrate the onset of the summer of 2021 with this unique body of work that serves as an ample reminder that mystery comes in many shapes and that it is frequently rooted in what we thought we knew. As our lives in the West begin to feel more normalized day-by-day, with the pandemic not yet behind us but seemingly manageable, Unfamiliar Creatures might serve to some as an ample illustration of how something once familiar and perhaps taken for granted can shift into something surreal and unrecognizable.
