news & events

Upcoming Solo Exhibit at Susan Eley Fine Art, NYC

I am very happy to announce my upcoming solo exhibit at Susan Eley Fine Art, NYC. These In-Between Days: New Paintings by Rachelle Krieger will be on view from November 3, 2020 - January 12, 2021.

Source, 2020, Acrylic, spray paint, oilbar and oil on linen, 70 × 60 in. (177.8 × 152.4 cm) — *Source*, 2020, Acrylic, spray paint, oilbar and oil on linen, 70 × 60 in. (177.8 × 152.4 cm)

From the Press Release:
“Susan Eley Fine Art is pleased to announce These In-Between Days, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by Rachelle Krieger. The show opens November 3, 2020 in our Upper West Side gallery and features over 20 mixed media paintings on paper and linen in a wide range of sizes. This will be Krieger’s third solo show with Susan Eley Fine Art, after “Rocks and Rays” in 2015 and “Of Earth and Sky” in 2018. The gallery will host a virtual artist talk with Rachelle Krieger mid-show, more details to follow. “These In-Between Days” will be on view by appointment only through January 12, 2021. To schedule a viewing, please contact susie@susaneleyfineart.com.

Rachelle Krieger’s return to painting en plein air came about a few years ago as she began to examine her life and what it means to be at a “mid-point.” Mid-career and mid-life, Krieger began to reinstate more physical elements into her work to accompany the atmospheres she captures so masterfully—sunshine, wind, fog and so on. The recent pandemic reinforced her practice of outdoor painting, which helped to provide a soothing balm for Krieger during these uncertain and challenging times.

As the weather gets colder and people become more concerned about what the fall and winter months will bring, many of us are returning to consuming art through screens again. Krieger’s work offers relief with vivid, day-glow colors and deep perspectives that take viewers into the work. In Source (2020), the solid, shadow-y tree trunks offer a stabilizing symbol to steady oneself and find footing in Krieger’s world. At almost 6 feet tall, it’s easy to immerse oneself in these very large paintings—one can sense the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze the artist may have experienced while painting.

Krieger’s smaller paintings feel like precious gems, each radiating a warm glow. The plant life in Night Blooms (2020) emerges from the ground and reaches towards the sun. Teals, reds and yellows pull forward from the earthy brown background. By painting these scenes, Krieger honors and memorializes one singular moment in time and nature.

This new series signals hope and change. As our planet hurdles towards the unknown, these landscapes provide a foundation, yet remind us of the constant changes in climate occurring all around us—both the visible and invisible. Wind sweeps across the plane while new life grows and trees sway in Transformations (2020). Krieger’s introduction of spray paint as a medium offers an element of unpredictability—much like our current circumstances, the drips and drops “can only be controlled so much.”

Each piece is complex, dynamic and layered. As Krieger worked to express her feelings of being at a mid-point, she also inadvertently captured what many of us are experiencing right now. The world is at a crossroads and uneasy about which path we’ll go down. Krieger illustrates this anxiety and hope in her bright, ever-evolving, living, breathing paintings.”

> VIEW exhibition page
> SEE works available on Artsy
> LISTEN to accompanying Spotify playlist
> SIGN-IN to receive an invitation to upcoming virtual art talks

"Artist in the Gallery" Talk – Sunday, Oct 20th, 3pm

Please join me on Sunday October 20th at 3pm at the Nassau County Museum of Art for a walk-through and discussion of the current exhibit ENERGY: The Power of Art. I am very honored to have my painting Near Collision, III included in this fascinating show.

Energy: The Power of Art
Curated by Charles A. Riley II, PhD
Nassau County Museum of Art
One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor NY

On view from July 20 - November 3, 2019

This innovative exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art brings together art and science, connecting major painting and sculpture with Einstein, Tesla, and Brookhaven Lab, including work from artists Miya Ando, Doug Argue, Alexander Calder, Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Rachelle Krieger, Scott McIntire, Julie Mehretu, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Barbara Prey, Man Ray, James Rosenquist, Keith Sonnier, Frank Stella, Mark Tobey and more.

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"Energy: The Power of Art" exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art

Rachelle Krieger Near Collision, III 2014, oil and graphite on wood panel 44”x40” — Rachelle Krieger
*Near Collision, III*
2014, oil and graphite on wood panel
44”x40”

I am very happy to announce that my painting “Near Collision, III” will be included in this fascinating exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art.

Energy: The Power of Art
Curated by Charles A. Riley II, PhD
Nassau County Museum of Art
One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor NY
On view from July 20 - November 3, 2019

From the Press Release:

This innovative exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art brings together art and science, connecting major painting and sculpture with Einstein, Tesla, and Brookhaven Lab.

For the first time at any art museum, top-tier scientists and major figures in art (including Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Julie Mehretu and Man Ray) are brought together in one interactive exhibition. Prepared in collaboration with the Tesla Museum and using scientific images from Brookhaven National Laboratory, this innovative show uses masterworks of art side-by-side with images produced by the most advanced scientific instruments and an active “cloud chamber” experiment from Brookhaven (North America’s only particle collider) to explore the invisible world of energy in all its many forms. Nikola Tesla’s original laboratory is re-created in the museum, complete with generators, prototypes for motors, instruments and patent drawings tracking his inventions of alternating current, long-distance wireless signals (the predecessor of WiFi), lasers and other epochal discoveries. The galleries are filled with major works of painting and sculpture by artists who are fascinated with energy, from electricity to sunlight, nuclear fission, electromagnetic waves, cosmic force fields, the natural voltage of the human body, and sub-atomic activity.

At the summit of human thought, a dialogue between art and science is engaged on the topic of energy. The minds that meet in one show include Albert Einstein and Tesla (both of whom lived on Long Island), international art stars Julie Mehretu, Man Ray, Mark Tobey, James Rosenquist (a ten-foot wide painting that includes a spinning clock dial), Keith Sonnier, Richard Pousette-Dart, Joseph Cornell and local legend Barbara Prey. One unforgettable experience will be the aurora borealis created, using natural light with glass and translucent fabrics, by sculptor Miya Ando inside the elegant gallery that was the original dining room of the mansion. It is one of several works created on commission for the show. Others include monumental paintings by Doug Argue similar to the one commissioned for the World Trade Center lobby and a series of Energy Field paintings by Greenport’s own Scott McIntire.

Though invisible, energy is all around us. Here is physicist Brian Green, in his masterful book The Fabric of the Cosmos, on the invisible world our artists have put on canvas and paper:

“Living among radio and television broadcasts, cellphone communications, the sun’s heat and light, we are all constantly awash in a sea of electromagnetic fields…When you see something, you can think of it in terms of a waving electromagnetic field entering your eye and stimulating your retina, or in terms of photon particles entering your eye and doing the same thing.”

Way before our time, the greatest artist of all, Leonardo da Vinci, wrote,

“The air is full of infinite lines, straight and radiating, intercrossing and interweaving without ever coinciding one with another; and they represent for every object the true form of their reason.”

The science of art meets the art of science in one thrilling show.

Programming for the show includes artists and scientists in the galleries, lectures on the relationship between science and math and art, a forum on the future of energy including top scientists and executives from local utilities, and a director’s seminar held in his private office. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essay by curator Charles A. Riley II, PhD.

About the Museum:

The Nassau County Museum of Art is located at One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Admission is $12 for adults, $8 for seniors (62 and above) and $4 for students and children (4 to12). Docent-led tours of the exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. each day; tours of the mansion are offered each Saturday at 1 p.m.

> See the NCMA website here

> See more about Rachelle Krieger's Rocks and Rays Series paintings here

Introducing Recent Monotype Prints

In July 2018 I spent several intense days with the master printer Marina Ancona at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn NY, and completed a mini-series of monotype prints. During the time I was working on these, there was a drama unfolding in the news: 12 boys and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand and a grueling 18-day rescue was under way. On looking back at the making of these monotypes, I was most likely subconsciously influenced by images of caves and rocks, thinking about cairns that could help mark a trail to exit the labyrinth of the cave.

Information about monotypes: A monotype is a type of print, made by drawing or painting on a non-porous surface (in this case, glass). Each monotype is unique and one of a kind. These monotypes were printed on Arches Rives BFK paper. More detailed information about the monotype making process can be found here.