Autobiographical Statement

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I was born in 1996, in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. My parents are both abstract painters, and I feel that being surrounded by paintings, even before I possessed language, gave me a deep understanding of the visual. The landscape of the Lower East Side, the East Village, and Brooklyn, and the fun loving people I grew up with there, formed my internal architecture. As did the special kind of melancholy that exists in the desire for a colorful life.

 

I attended Bard College and received my BA in Studio Art in 2018. Immediately after graduation, wanting something new, a friend and I drove cross country and began life in Los Angeles. I developed an appreciation for the unique nature of California, and for roadtrips, both of which became a theme in my work.

 

However, despite being apart from it, my primary subject matter remains New York City.

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I like to think of Ernest Hemingway's remark on Joan Miro's The Farm-- "It has in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there."

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-RG, 2020