Rebecca Guyver RBA

Statement

I work from life but believe what is inside the artist is filtered through what she is looking at. I am interested in language and the visual and how one can evoke the other. As an optimist, the stories I find are joyful. Words often inspire me. My work can be read as narratives or as colour studies.

I like the counterintuitive nature of egg tempera. Although it can take days to paint a small piece, I like that it dries quickly and can be ‘corrected’. I work from general to specific redrawing with pigment until everything is in the right place. I like that when I add white, egg tempera behaves like gouache. Most passages incorporate layers of glazes and alternate between abstract areas of colour, pattern and realistic motifs.

I think of the process of painting akin to tuning an instrument. I correct until I find harmony. In the end, for me, a painting is not finished until it means something to me and any ambiguity is intentional. The paintings I like best evoke a memory or some universal feeling.

I learned the technique of egg tempera with Ruth Stage (NEAC) and Mick Kirkbride (NEAC). I love the quality of light it creates.

Bio

1960 born East Coast USA and grew up on the upper westside of Manhattan.

1978 - 82 Degree in painting and drawing from Stanford University – studied with some of the Bay Area painters: Frank Lobdell and Nathan Olivera.

Mentored by painters John Heliker and Dorothy Eisner on Cranberry Island.

1982 - 2019 Taught art to children in schools and privately in NYC, CA, Singapore and the UK.

MA education (Distinction), Anglia Ruskin, 2009.

NEAC Drawing Scholar 2018

Exhibitions include RBA, NEAC, SWA, Pastel Society, International Print Exhibition, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Gorstella Gallery, Arte Borgo, Bermondsey Project Space.