Rebecca Ness
Since we first engaged with Rebecca Ness during her time at Yale, it was clear she perceived the world from a unique angle, developing a density in realistic paintings, looking at friends and peers with a maximal and virtuoso command of canvas. Close-ups of hands and overhead views of desks and bodies displayed keen-eyed examinations of daily life. Over the past few years, Ness’ lens has zoomed out, with social environments taking focus, whether friends’ studios and homes, her own domestic space, or other places we occupy in our personal lives. Though realistic in style, fantasy inhabits each work, creating a place that is solidly familiar but imbued with a visionary utopia.
Charles Moore: The Art Cologne Fair is an event I’ve wanted to attend, so I’d like to start off with your recent experience. How did you participate, and was it different compared to other shows?
Rebecca Ness: I didn’t physically attend myself. Carl Kostyal presented at the fair in a solo booth of three works, some of the largest works I’ve ever done, a series called Heartbreak at Gingers. Gingers is this well-known, long-running dyke bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When I first moved to New York about two years ago and was sad, single, and lonely, it was where I’d go to visit friends.
We’d go multiple times a week, and you’d find your community—similar people who’d all go the same nights. And in my lonely times, you’d make eyes at a girl across the bar and think, “Maybe this’ll turn into something.” So the linear story of the paintings in order is, first, me in the bar seeing a girl on the stairs leading out to the smoking area, where we’d have a connection and start talking. That leads to the next painting, where I go to the bathroom and am drying my hands on my shirt, but then see the girl talking to somebody else. The third painting is me leaving, calling an Uber, texting a friend, or something, just in the act of leaving. Finally, the girl is with somebody else, and through the window, they’re gone together.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/1176116771.jpg]
That’s a summary of the many lonely times I had at that bar. But the way I view it, there’s a reference to being in this bar where you can have this breadth of human experience. There are lots of other characters drinking, falling in love, arguing, and looking at other people across the bar. So it’s not just about me, but it’s what dyke bars or gay bars mean to people who put so much of themselves out because it’s a place to feel safe, a place where all your friends can go. There’s a lot of pressure and love you put into that space, so those paintings really manifested my own love story. I ended up with my current girlfriend, who I think I’ll be with forever. We had our first date at Gingers, and we had our first kiss right at the bar where I painted that other girl. So I just portrayed my own love story with whatever gay art there is in that series. It was made at a lonely time, but now I look back and think this painting has something to do with how happy I am now.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/0771776161.jpg]
I see your work typically combining realism with expressive extraction, which is how you’ve related that story. Can you elaborate on this technique and how you blend modes to create such realistic interpretations?
I think what’s been important for me is that I have a strong academic painting background. I was very lucky to grow up attending this after-school art program called the Acorn Gallery School of Art. From age six, we were drawing and painting the figure in oils. Then I went to an undergraduate art school where academic figure drawing was the crux of the education. So for me, that kind of craft and the academic side of art are very important. I think about it in the same way that you need to be able to do algebra before you can do calculus. Once you know the basics, you can really play around with the material, and break the rules.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/1166177100.jpg]
And where are you now in your development?
I think my painting language now is based on life, but I also don’t want to lie. I’m not pretending that it’s anything other than a painting with paint and brushes. But at the same time, we can create things that are bigger or more luscious than life, or we can mimic a dream or a thought. This reminds me of my favorite Audrey Flack quote, where she said something like, “I don’t paint a lime. I paint a lime that is greener than any lime that could ever exist—and juicier.” I really like the idea of taking a slice of real life and putting some sort of focus and saturation into it, where you know that there’s something else going on too. I’m not trying to hide it.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/6611611117.jpg]
So paint me a picture of your process from start to finish, like how y...
Since we first engaged with Rebecca Ness during her time at Yale, it was clear she perceived the world from a unique angle, developing a density in realistic paintings, looking at friends and peers with a maximal and virtuoso command of canvas. Close-ups of hands and overhead views of desks and bodies displayed keen-eyed examinations of daily life. Over the past few years, Ness’ lens has zoomed out, with social environments taking focus, whether friends’ studios and homes, her own domestic space, or other places we occupy in our personal lives. Though realistic in style, fantasy inhabits each work, creating a place that is solidly familiar but imbued with a visionary utopia.
Charles Moore: The Art Cologne Fair is an event I’ve wanted to attend, so I’d like to start off with your recent experience. How did you participate, and was it different compared to other shows?
Rebecca Ness: I didn’t physically attend myself. Carl Kostyal presented at the fair in a solo booth of three works, some of the largest works I’ve ever done, a series called Heartbreak at Gingers. Gingers is this well-known, long-running dyke bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When I first moved to New York about two years ago and was sad, single, and lonely, it was where I’d go to visit friends.
We’d go multiple times a week, and you’d find your community—similar people who’d all go the same nights. And in my lonely times, you’d make eyes at a girl across the bar and think, “Maybe this’ll turn into something.” So the linear story of the paintings in order is, first, me in the bar seeing a girl on the stairs leading out to the smoking area, where we’d have a connection and start talking. That leads to the next painting, where I go to the bathroom and am drying my hands on my shirt, but then see the girl talking to somebody else. The third painting is me leaving, calling an Uber, texting a friend, or something, just in the act of leaving. Finally, the girl is with somebody else, and through the window, they’re gone together.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/1176116771.jpg]
That’s a summary of the many lonely times I had at that bar. But the way I view it, there’s a reference to being in this bar where you can have this breadth of human experience. There are lots of other characters drinking, falling in love, arguing, and looking at other people across the bar. So it’s not just about me, but it’s what dyke bars or gay bars mean to people who put so much of themselves out because it’s a place to feel safe, a place where all your friends can go. There’s a lot of pressure and love you put into that space, so those paintings really manifested my own love story. I ended up with my current girlfriend, who I think I’ll be with forever. We had our first date at Gingers, and we had our first kiss right at the bar where I painted that other girl. So I just portrayed my own love story with whatever gay art there is in that series. It was made at a lonely time, but now I look back and think this painting has something to do with how happy I am now.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/0771776161.jpg]
I see your work typically combining realism with expressive extraction, which is how you’ve related that story. Can you elaborate on this technique and how you blend modes to create such realistic interpretations?
I think what’s been important for me is that I have a strong academic painting background. I was very lucky to grow up attending this after-school art program called the Acorn Gallery School of Art. From age six, we were drawing and painting the figure in oils. Then I went to an undergraduate art school where academic figure drawing was the crux of the education. So for me, that kind of craft and the academic side of art are very important. I think about it in the same way that you need to be able to do algebra before you can do calculus. Once you know the basics, you can really play around with the material, and break the rules.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/1166177100.jpg]
And where are you now in your development?
I think my painting language now is based on life, but I also don’t want to lie. I’m not pretending that it’s anything other than a painting with paint and brushes. But at the same time, we can create things that are bigger or more luscious than life, or we can mimic a dream or a thought. This reminds me of my favorite Audrey Flack quote, where she said something like, “I don’t paint a lime. I paint a lime that is greener than any lime that could ever exist—and juicier.” I really like the idea of taking a slice of real life and putting some sort of focus and saturation into it, where you know that there’s something else going on too. I’m not trying to hide it.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1369171671/1715886556/articles/n5zV9s8wm1716204684497/6611611117.jpg]
So paint me a picture of your process from start to finish, like how y...
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Juxtapoz (Digital) - 1 Issue, Summer 2024