Tierra Del Sol Gallery is proud to present The Evolution of Helen Rae. These 15 works represent the ongoing development of Rae’s studio practice and confirms her status as an iconic contemporary artist.
Helen Rae was over 50 when she joined the Tierra Del Sol Studio program and 76 years old when, in 2015, she had her first solo show at The Good Luck Gallery. Tierra Del Sol Gallery director Paige Wery, founder and principal of the commercial Good Luck, sold out Helen’s work at the Outsider Art Fair in 2016, putting Helen on the national map of galleries, collectors and museums.
In an arc that has included ceramic masks, sculpture and water color, Rae is now known for her vibrant, highly patterned, color dense pencil and graphite drawings inspired from couture magazines. In The Evolution of Helen Rae, she continues with her muse, yet focuses on portraiture and on the faces of women she does not know but brings to life with complexity and intimacy, using line, form and color to reveal a range of emotions.
The subjects of Rae’s new work express the tensions and the pleasures of this moment. These women are pensive, somber, stoic, resolute and all Helen’s in their rendering. She has elongated their heads, widened their faces, illuminated their eyes and contextualized them inside color fields that give the viewer a glimpse into Rae’s thinking and her growth as an artist. The Evolution of Helen Rae is both a surprise and evidence of her impulse to push the boundaries of how she sees, interprets and communicates her distinct and expanding aesthetic language. The exhibition marks another milestone in a prolific career that breaks boundaries of labels and categories in the art world and beyond.
Tierra Del Sol’s first solo exhibition of Helen Rae will be on view from September 4 through October 23, 2020. Open by appointment.
