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Artist’s Statement – Grego Rachko -2006
Using words, patterns and images in paintings, I explore questions about spirituality, culture, sensuality and community.
Words are how we try to understand things. We surround ourselves with words. I use abstract writing to stand in for spirit, which is beyond words. The nature of writing and words lends itself to becoming patterns and symbols which are recognizable as language, but specific meanings can be unknown. I use charcoal as a writing and drawing tool and as an adjunct to paint. Charcoal can cut through paint, both literally and figuratively.
I paint patterns as a way of reflecting the patterns in our own lives. We create patterns to decorate objects, gardens, fabrics, ourselves and just to create beauty. Our societies, religions, and cultures happen in patterns that give our lives meaning. I use patterns in a painting to reinforce both the composition and the content.
The idea of figure/ground in my paintings talks about the connection of all things, the fact that we are not really separate from things, or each other. Separation is a useful conceit, in living, like using a line in painting. It delineates the edges of things, when, in life, there are no outlines. I use a catalog of techniques that are about asserting the picture plane, the 2D-ness of the painted surface, at the same time fabricating the illusion of space and objects, which in fact takes place only in our minds.
Selected SOLO EXHIBITS
DECEMBER 2003 “The Big Picture, paintings, 1986 – present”, LGBT Community Center, Seattle, Wa
JUNE-JULY 2003 “Retro-Spective” Tacoma Arts Commission Woolworth Windows Project, Tacoma, Wa
JANUARY 2003 “the Usual Personas”, oil paintings, Rebar, Seattle, Wa.
AUGUST 2002 “New Figurative Work” oil paintings, Caffe Vita, Seattle, Wa.
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