Capital City Arts Initiative–Rachel Stiff: Entitled to the Sun
February 5, 2021 – May 26, 2021
885 E Musser Street, Carson City
Rachel Stiff, Tar Pimp, mixed media on canvas, 50″ x 44″, 2019.
The Capital City Arts Initiative presents its exhibition, Entitled to the Sun, by artist Rachel Stiff at the CCAI Courthouse Gallery.
There is not a lot of primary color here. Rachel Stiff paints abstractions inspired by western landscapes. Stiff said, “Space is what interests me most. The West has a lot to offer. From the outskirts of town, one can examine the composition of a city and its relationship with surrounding landforms. There are endless variations of color and light, depending on exact location and time of day. Through painting, I frame the modern West; exit ramps serve sunsets to go and mysterious bluffs quietly exhibit the beauty of perspective from the grocery store parking lot. Working intuitively at first, I allow each painting or drawing to develop. The partnership between the work and myself progresses, as does the importance of decision-making. Mistakes, deliberate forms, controlled spills, and the culling of positive and negative space are the end result. My journey to western Nevada has taken me through the greater Western states. At all these outposts, I’ve found each location’s individual sense of place, space, color palette, and topographical textures.”
During her artist’s residency with RAID Projects in downtown LA, Stiff made a body of paintings focused on the intersection of southern California’s dense development and the stark silence of the desert beyond. Now in her Nevada garage studio, she makes work about the surrounding landscapes and construct atmospheres on canvas and on paper. Identifying as a true Westerner, her work examines the construction of the modern landscape and desert-urban interface through abstraction.
Stiff is a painter and art educator based in Carson City at Western Nevada College. Stiff holds an MFA from the University of Arizona in Tucson (2012) and a BFA from the University of Montana in Missoula (2009). Her work has been shown throughout the West and acquired by the Emmy award winning studio, Traktor Films of Santa Monica, CA. In 2013, Stiff was selected by RAID Projects for a three-month artist residency in downtown Los Angeles. After living and working in the city intermittently for two years, she moved to Nevada to work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, her work can be found in the permanent collection at the Marjorie Barrick Museum. The Nevada Museum of Art featured her work in its 2016 statewide survey, Tilting the Basin; the exhibition was shown in Reno and in Las Vegas. Stiff is now fulfilling her third year at WNC. https://www.rachelstiff.com/
This program is supported in part by Nevada Humanities. Learn more
