Rachel MacFarlane

Exhibitions Memory Gardens 2018
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Lightning Strike 

42 x 78 Inches Oil on Canvas 2018 

Lightning Strike 

42 x 78 Inches Oil on Canvas 2018 

Memory Gardens


Solo Exhibition
Jarvis Hall Gallery
333B 36 Ave SE, Calgary, AB Canada

Exhibition Dates
October 19 - November 17th , 2018

Fireflies at Ridgewood Reservoir 

60 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas 2017 

Fireflies at Ridgewood Reservoir 

60 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas 2017 

Cut Moon 

34 x 50 inches Oil on Canvas 2018

Cut Moon 

34 x 50 inches Oil on Canvas 2018

Lake Shadow Puppets 

48 x 48 inches Oil on Canvas 2018

Lake Shadow Puppets 

48 x 48 inches Oil on Canvas 2018

Ripple Heat

60 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas 2018

Ripple Heat

60 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas 2018

Hot Noon Light 

24 x 30 inches, Oil on Canvas on Wood Panel, 2018

Hot Noon Light 

24 x 30 inches, Oil on Canvas on Wood Panel, 2018

Desert Flowers 

40 x 30 inches , Oil on Linen 2017

Desert Flowers 

40 x 30 inches , Oil on Linen 2017

Forest Fire Lightning Storm 

60 x 72 inches Oil on Canvas 2017

Forest Fire Lightning Storm 

60 x 72 inches Oil on Canvas 2017

Case Woodlot 

40 x 30 inches , Oil on Canvas , 2017

Case Woodlot 

40 x 30 inches , Oil on Canvas , 2017

Maquette for Forest Fire Lightning Storm Framed 

Maquette for Forest Fire Lightning Storm Framed 

Maquette for River Rock at Twilight 

Maquette for River Rock at Twilight 

Memory Gardens is a series of paintings that depict personal memories of landscapes. The works lament the landscape, and manufacture new places through the process of painting. The foundation for each painting is a memory, allowing each to tell a unique narrative. For over a decade, MacFarlane has been building maquettes as a way to enter the process of painting.

Lately, her models are made from paper in shallow boxes no bigger than a postcard. The constructions depict gardens, mountains, waterways, rock formations and other sites of landscape. She then lights these makeshift miniature spaces and uses them as the observational foundation for the paintings.

The maquettes allow her to capture temporal light, physical form, and to create coloured atmospheres. She acts like a studio-based plein air painter among these miniature paper gardens. Through this process she fabricates a new place, building it from the residue of memory, and the humble material of paper.

Fool's Paradise 2017
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