RACHEL CONSTANTINE - ARTIST
Ithaca Peonies
Before his fall from grace on Sunday , a fellow artist described Rachel as the Novak Djokovic of art- a superb all-rounder. She paints in the classical style with fabulous flair. Unafraid of the still life, her oils look fit for the walls of Chatsworth House where they would blend beautifully into a centuries old tradition of bright natural verisimilitude.
But Rachel is a mistress of all forms of painterly expression. .Ithaca peonies, above ,is one of a run of ten. Rachel tells me these prints done in Ely are the very best she has ever seen.
And she has seen many. Rachel has worked in the field of art for twenty years and now exhibits with Museums and galleries across the United States. Her work is in public and private collections all over the world including the hugely acclaimed Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Publications love her work and she has featured in many magazines and the book Alla Prima.
Self Portrait with a Man
This seductive self portrait is actually in the permanent collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the fFine Arts Museum.”It’s where I turn the cliché of the male artist with a submissive model, on its head” Rachel declares. It is also a superb example of the skill of portraiture - but here with an added panache, the subject is the artist herself
The Sculptor is an example of Rachel’s figurative work.
The identity of the sculptor above is unknown to me. But it is reminiscent of a style of American painting , a heroic bravado with elements of the backwoodsman, only realised in this genre. The portrait at the foot of this piece is not strictly in that mode but still has the breezy sense of the New World about the figure , a splash of optimism absent from European portraiture in my view.
Skies -
Sky studies are part of Rachel Constantine’s work “ I have a constantly evolving series of Sky studies’she explains .She now has skies in Britain to show for her single year here. Rachel entered a competition for Plein Air Painting in Norfolk over nine days. Called Paint-OPut Norfolk , more than a hundred contestants from all over the world took par t.Amazingly - or should I say quite predictably she came in at First Place.
A portrait of Kristen Biddle which now hangs at Andalusia House Museum and gardens on a 100 acre Arboretum in Andalusia PA USA
Rachel is in full swing here in her studio in Cambridge and has picked up a commission to paint a Head of Department in the University. I think we can safely say she has no need of Chatsworth to power her career here in Britain. We all know a great thing when we see it.
