Relentless Hope ( 2021)

The ‘Relentless Hope’ series consists of mixed media works on Aluminium created using physi-digital processes ranging from painting to photography, digital manipulation to collage and printmaking. The pieces explore the contradictory forces that make up so much of our embodied human experience; the liminal spaces between the external and the internal, the physical and psychological, and the ongoing struggle between the mortal body and the possibility of an eternal spirit. 

Fontaine-Wolf integrates self-portraiture to explore her own experience of the human condition, bringing a quality of intimacy to the pieces. The nature of the images created however -  faceless, distorted and almost otherworldly - allows for these images to extend outwards from the purely personal into the realm of the archetypal. 

The use of mirrors in composing the images draws on Fontaine-Wolf’s ongoing interest in Vanitas symbolism and Lacanian mirror theory, whilst also referencing her interest in mysticism and the occult. The reflections of the segmented body explore contemporary concerns with self-image and digital representation, which can lead us to feel a deep sense of fragmentation in much the same way as mirror-gazing can have a  dissociative effect on our sense of identity.

The presence of hands in this series of works act as gestures towards dissolution - multiplied and disembodied. Grasping in the dark without eyes to guide them, they continue on impelled by a sense of relentless hope. 

Aesthetica Magazine Interview | ING Discerning Eye: Expanding Perception | 2019

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition returns to Mall Galleries, London, this month. The exhibition champions emerging and established artists, presenting a dynamic selection of small works for sale. Each piece is selected independently by leaders in the creative arts  – resulting in six diverse exhibitions within the whole. Aesthetica speaks to artist Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf, whose work is included in this year’s show.

A: How does it feel to be part of the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2019?
RFW: I’m honoured to have been invited by Sir Tim Rice and to be exhibiting alongside some of his other selected artists, such as Jonathan Yeo, Lisa Wright, Paul Benney, Kristian Evju and Nell Sully whom I greatly admire. The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition is always an exciting show; the format of having six selectors curating their own areas of the gallery makes for an engaging and fun viewing experience. It’s also always exciting to be showing some new works for the first time and seeing how they are received. Especially the three pieces from my Lover’s Eye series, which are quite different for me, in part because it’s the first time I’ve worked on this very small scale.

A: What are the main themes in your work, and why did you choose painting as a medium?
RFW: My work revolves around female identity and the experience of being a woman. I’m interested in the very personal and often unspoken physical realities connected with the female body, including the changes and cycles we go through and connected societal pressures. Themes around mortality and desire, which are deeply bound up with the symbolism of the female through mythology and religion, also feature quite heavily.

I’m drawn to painterly draughtsmanship. To me there’s something almost magical about creating a lifelike image just out of pigment on a surface; but I’m equally interested in the materiality of the medium itself.  You can create so many different textures and effects with paint alone, and there is always an element of chance that comes with painting. As much as I plan something out in advance, I can never fully anticipate what the paint will do, and where it will lead me. This gives the whole process of creating an element of being alive, which mirrors the subject matter I’m working with. There’s a cyclical tension between control and chaos in the act of painting. Images and brushstrokes are brought into existence only to be destroyed, becoming absorbed into the next form or layer and turned into something new yet again. Although I predominantly paint, I also really enjoy working with digital mediums. In the end I need to feel physically connected to the work, so that it’s almost something that has come from my own body.

A: Your pieces explore ideas of the female gaze. Why is it important to address this in 2019?
RFW: Over the last few years the art world seems to have accepted that female artists are underrepresented. Thankfully many galleries and museums are trying to redress this balance. The female gaze is important because it shows the world from a different perspective. Seeing the world represented through the eyes of women – and the ‘other’ in general – will begin to rebalance the cultural landscape around us which shapes so many of our attitudes and societal norms. I don’t believe that there is any one kind of definition of what the contemporary female gaze is, as there are so many ways of experiencing womanhood.

A: How does your work combine historical influences – including mythology and Vanitas painting – with experiences of today’s world?RFW: The main way I combine these influences is by exploring how they still affect us today. All myths and folklore become part of our cultural make up, and the Greek Myths have such a lasting legacy. Many of the ideas and archetypes described in them still inform our opinions without us necessarily being aware of it.

My last solo show, for example, was inspired by the myth of the Medusa and her connection with menstruation and the female gaze. It explored how this story represents woman as a dual image: beautiful and pure on the one hand and “monstrous” on the other. This image – along with the taboos around women’s bodily functions – stem from these stories.

A: You often work with subjects whom you know. What does this sense of connection add to the artwork?
RFW: It plays a vital part for me. Even though I have specific themes for each body of work, I still want to create images of women that are based in reality. I want to incorporate some of my sitter’s personal essence and experiences through the prism of the ideas I’m exploring. It’s through doing this that I believe you can create representations of women which other women can truly connect with. My main aim is always to create images that are both personal and universal at once.

I want to use my gaze to celebrate my sitters, and to reflect back to them what I see; allowing them to view themselves through another woman’s eyes. In return, the responses I get back from them about the paintings often reveal facets I had been unaware of myself. In this way the painting becomes a process of making visible otherwise invisible aspects of ourselves, to ourselves through each other.

A: Can you tell us about the works you will be showing in the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition?
RFW: The pieces from the Lover’s Eye series are inspired by 18th and 19th Century miniature ‘lover’s eye’ jewellery – as well as my ongoing interest in the symbolism of the female gaze and its perceived dangers. I was really drawn to the idea of being able to capture and cherish your lover’s forbidden gaze, and making it even more precious by turning it into an actual jewel. The eye was used as a symbol for the vulva, menstruation and fertility in ancient times, so there is a very strong link between the forbidden nature of the female gaze and women’s sexuality. I’ve played with this in these pieces. Alongside these I’ll be showing some paintings which continue to explore the physical experience and sensations of the body.

A: Why do you think initiatives such as ING Discerning Eye are important for contemporary artists?
RFW: Having open exhibitions like this is a vital opportunity for contemporary artists, especially ones who aren’t as established to break through into the often-elusive art world. It’s an opportunity to have your work seen by prominent figures in the arts, to exhibit alongside seasoned artists and possibly have your work become part of the ING collection.  Apart from this it’s also a great opportunity to have the work seen by the large number of visitors that come to see the exhibition every year.

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition runs 14 – 24 November at Mall Galleries, London, and all artworks are for sale. Find out more here.

Model Musings | 2019

I was half-joking when I volunteered my middle-aged nakedness to be painted by Rebecca. When she accepted my offer with enthusiasm I was initially delighted and subsequently terrified. The kind of terror one might expect to feel if having volunteered to jump out of an aeroplane or walk hot coals for a dare. As an artist myself, I joke that it’s my superpower to get people naked within a few minutes of meeting them in order to do my work. It seemed only fair and fitting that I too should experience the sense of vulnerability and exposure my clients feel when they walk into my own studio.

In arranging the date with Rebecca, my anxiety increased dramatically. I compared myself to the beautiful women in her previous works of art and felt ridiculous and unworthy by comparison. I cruelly poked and pulled at my own belly fat in the days leading up to my modelling date, as if this one part of my body was some how to blame for my unacceptability. I’m 46, I droop and wobble, I dimple and I fold. What art could possibly come of me? And yet, when the day came, I showered and found some daring-do inside of me, determined to do my best for Rebecca, whatever that might mean. I had no idea what she envisioned, and still terrified of disappointing her, we began trying different poses. When you disrobe for a lover, there is an anxiety you might disappoint them with physical unsexiness, or simply be crap in bed. When disrobing for Rebecca I was simply scared that nothing I had to offer would inspire her to paint. That she would have wasted a day coming to see me naked, and we’d both be embarrassed by my inadequacy as a model and a woman.

Talking through her ideas for her new collection gave me a different perspective. Rebecca was looking for something more real, raw and feminine than images of naked flesh we are usually bombarded with. We talked about different stages of feminine physicality - menstruation, pregnancy, and my own personal fun time with peri menopause. We talked about feminine archetypes in mythology and what they mean to us. And I found myself reflecting on so many of the roles I have played or been assigned in life:- virgin, innocent, victim, seductress, mother, provider, monster, crone (yes…even at 46). Curling my naked body around my own work (life cast sculptures of women at every stage of life), with muslin draped around and over my face like a veil I felt strangely liberated. I wasn’t me, raw and naked on my studio floor any more. I was a woman, any and all of them, and some kind of creature too - contorting and flexing to express something more than just shapes for the viewer. I was no longer scared. I felt amused and powerful like a queen.

Rebecca’s reaction to the poses came as a complete surprise. Her growing excitement for the work she would create from the photos she was taking of me made me feel so alive and fabulous. My nakedness had nothing to do with the commercially acceptable sexual beauty that women my age feel like we constantly fail at, and everything to do with the core of my femininity - my wisdom, power, experience, my secrets and my skills, the life I have created, the love I have shared and inspired, the magic. The resulting paintings are astounding. From the collection, I instantly recognised myself and yet they seem so strange and other-worldly.

These are not portraits, but abstractions of my curves, my bones, my wild and strong spirit set free. I see not only myself but the women that surround me in life. I recognise my sister’s wrists in mine, my grandmother’s calves and ankles, my mother’s hips. I’m alone in the painting and yet I’m not - there is a unity, an affinity with my gender, with my tribe. The streak of red across one of the paintings feels like a powerful flag that I am claiming for my own. I’m still 46, and I still droop, wobble, dimple and fold. But I’m fucking fabulous.

CJ Munn 2019

Daughters of Medusa | 2019 | Zebra One Gallery/Koppel Project

Mythology is full of stories of powerful and fearsome hybrid women such as the Medusa whose magical powers must be contained. She is a symbol of womanhood in itself, a representation of woman as the other. A dual image, beautiful and pure on the one side and monstrous on the other. This image is one we’ve carried with us for millennia and it continues to shape our views of womanhood. Indeed it is one reflected in Picasso’s famous statement that women are either goddesses or doormats, and it is inextricably linked with fertility, menstruation and power dynamics.

The paintings, of myself and women I know, become both personal and universal at once; reflecting the lived experience of inhabiting a woman’s body. They are inspired by a combination of mythology, as well as personal stories and experiences. The power of the female gaze, which plays such a vital part in the story of Medusa, serves as one of the main focuses for the series of paintings. Even in medieval times it was considered that the glance from a menstruating or menopausal woman had the ability to poison, even kill, speaking to the immense threat perceived not only from women’s menstrual blood, but also from female power itself, from being seen by a knowing gaze.

This body of work reflects on the creative potential present in this very primal aspect of womanhood, which still holds so much fear and shame. The mixed emotions most women in today’s society still have towards their bodies and themselves, especially on those thresholds of change during the menarche and the menopause speak of Medusa’s legacy.

The paintings celebrate the female body through the power of the female gaze. Acknowledging and challenging negative cultural conditioning around women’s bodies and menstruation, as exemplified by the enduring myth of the Medusa.

Amar / Curated interview | 2018

Q1: a) Can you tell us about your recent collection 'Dreams, Promise and the Divine Series' 

The series is inspired by the female archetype, from saints to voodoo spirits, to the goddesses of the Greek Pantheon. It’s creative exploration into the many forms these archetypes inhabit, offering a plethora of possibilities of what it means to be a woman. “Traditional” feminine traits, such as kindness, passivity and a desire to nurture do of course feature, as so do icy determination, power, cunning, and everything in between.

The starting point for this body of work was an interest in how female spirits and goddesses could serve a way of externalising and giving character to many women’s experiences, making them visible and thereby legitimising them.

These spirits, goddesses, and archetypes, felt very familiar despite being so far removed from contemporary life and seemed to be reflected in the many women I’m surrounded by. The culminating series was born from a playful interpretation of these ideas in which archetypal characters, goddesses and symbols were incorporated and reimagined with images of my contemporaries.

b) how you see your work developing from this point?   

Each series I paint is like a new branch growing from the previous one, and it’s only through the process of making and continued research that these branches form and reveal themselves to me.

One of the paintings in the Dreams Promise and the Divine series, ‘Lifeblood Venus’ opened up the path for my new body of work. It is a painting of a female nude, which features a lot of red and proved to be quite problematic for some viewers because of the colour’s connotations with menstrual blood. I’m interested in the taboo this still represents despite being a reality for half of the population, and being an integral inescapable part of fertility, something which contemporary society still places a huge emphasis on when it comes to women.

The development of this body of work starts from this taboo, looking into different mythological, religious and symbolic references to menstruation, the cyclical nature of women’s experience within their bodies and also the lack of any rights of passage for the onset of a girls menarche in contemporary western society. 

The resulting body of work ‘The Moon’s Animal’ which I’m still working on doesn’t aim to shock, but instead to explore, to celebrate and possibly help normalise conversation about this very natural part of women’s experience.  

Q2: Tell us what initially inspired your practice to focus on fantasy, beauty and identity? 

These themes are ones I’ve carried with me since childhood. Over time they have matured and evolved into my current practice. I come from a very maternal family, and have always drawn and painted women, especially mythological characters. These early fantastic, explorations into idealised female identity represent the beginnings of how the female form became the primary barer of meaning in my work; a vehicle though which to explore themes of identity, mortality, desire and a search for meaning in itself.  

 Q3: Women's rights, equality and gender are at the forefront of global attention.

What representations of womanhood are you portraying within your paintings? 

Absolutely, and I think there are a lot of interesting conversations to be had about this as our perceptions around gender are slowly changing and evolving.  I think that even seeing more art about women by women changes the view of womanhood simply through offering a broader perspective.

In Dreams, Promise and the Divine for example I look at a very classical theme, but offer a playful and contemporary take on female archetypes which hopefully invites us to question how they continue to shape our view of womanhood.  

I paint the women in my immediate surroundings. My contemporaries, my friends, fellow artists and their children; women from real life. I’m interested in capturing their unique beauty and essence whilst also exploring the overarching themes of identity, mortality and desire.

The women I’m representing in my paintings are therefore both fantastic and real.  They are representations of the feminine divine present in all women.

Q4:You've experimented with various mediums and surfaces, tell us about your unique processes and how this adds to the conceptual framework? 

I like to try out new materials and mediums, which I feel drawn to either because they add something to the ideas I’m currently working on, or end up leading the ideas through their materiality.

My paintings generally exist on a sliding scale between chaos and control, which varies from piece to piece and series to series. This relationship is deeply rooted within the concepts of my practice, and my interest in female identity and mortality; just as the young woman holds both forces of life and death within herself symbolically, these oscillating opposites of activity and passivity, chaos and control, are a vital component in the act of making art. Whilst painting, I’m often aware that as much as I have to consciously manifest a mark or an image, I also have to surrender to and accept moments of chaos, allowing ideas or images to be destroyed in order for something new to be born. Incorporating new mediums and surfaces is part of this process.

Q5: What's next? Do you have any upcoming news you would like to share?

I will be having a solo showing of my next body of work, ‘The Moon’s Animal’ at the end of October at Someth1ng Gallery, and am also very proud to be part of “Muse, Model or Mistress?,  a show I am co-curating with Gallerist Karina Phillips at Gallery Different this September. The solely female exhibition based on the question Marcel Duchamp posed to Peggy Gugenheim about the role of women in the art world, which led to her New York exhibition in 1943 : 31 Women Artists, will be held in collaboration with Flying Elephant’s production of Picasso’s Women. It comes at a time when, as you mentioned, there is a global spotlight on the role of women in society and the way in which they are portrayed and perceived.  I hope that this exhibition together the monologues will open up a discussion of how the muse’s position changes through the female rather than the male gaze.

Artwave West | 2018

A woman contemplates, averts direct gaze, she is partly in brilliant sharp focus and partly diffused in a soft dusty area of shadow; there is linear drawing of immense accuracy that can only be the result of careful consideration of a particular individual, and there is also loose gestural manipulation of the paint that has all the liberated movement of an artist perfectly in tune with expressive abstraction. The viewer senses immediately when in the presence of a painting by Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf that some profound questioning is taking place about what it is to be this woman, to live as a woman at this moment in time when self-image and the search for identity take on a particular contemporary tension.

Fontaine-Wolf is fascinated by female identity; aware on the one hand of the crushing weight of historic symbolism as it appears in depictions of the female form throughout Western art, but also very much concerned with a contemporary standpoint that has as a backdrop the mass proliferation of self-generated imagery through the technological revolution, the culture of the ‘selfie’. Here we find not only a narcissistic obsession to pursue the perfect image, the woman caught forever at the moment of ultimate beauty, but also through social media the need to project this outwards in an attempt to seek personal validation. This is why Fontaine-Wolf is interested in the tradition of the ‘Vanitas’, that theme that was so important to Dutch and Flemish painters of the 17th century, the reminder of the transience of the things of the world, the emptiness of possession; she has stated that she has become “increasingly aware of a search for meaning, not just personally, but in the people around me”

The portraits painted by Fontaine-Wolf both draw upon and question these constructs and she has developed a highly individual approach to using working methods that mirror and explore her concerns. For example, noticing that there are many ways and occasions, both in the short and the long term, in which the face might be masked, altered, changed, aged, her working process involves many different applications of paint and sometimes other material; pouring and spilling over, allowing paint to make spontaneous surfaces, bleeding, running, resisting, absorbing into the canvas in a soft matt stain, translucent glossing. Areas of raw unpainted canvas are sometimes left, suggestive of the painting in a process of becoming.

Precise figuration coexists with looser abstraction, muscular definition is set off against nuances of expression, deep softness finds its counterpart in rigid flat blocks, seemingly monochromatic colour reveals subtle tints of grey blues, pinks or lilacs, and then a shining copper colour or a strong red defies the assumption. The interplay of oppositions, of clarity and dispersion, is an intrinsic part of the process as the form repeatedly finds itself, indeed entire paintings might go through many incarnations, starting as one thing but becoming another; it is as though she wishes to take the painting itself through a cycle of life. Some paintings are reborn by a process of whiting out, white is brushed over and partly washed off, this reactivates old layers underneath; white takes on a symbolic significance, everything disappears into vacant space so that something new can emerge.

Fontaine-Wolf has been drawn to working from models who are themselves creative people, or who are mothers – some of the paintings are of mothers and children – reflecting an interest in expressing feminine creative force. There is usually a dialogue with the model, but much of the actual studio work is carried out while referring to photographs. This gives her the freedom to allow the painting to move in its own direction, to transcend the portrait likeness and express the concepts that emerge out of her own creative thinking.

Martin Goold PS , 2018

ARTWAVE WEST