About
Rigel
Born from a desert creature into the waves of the Pacific Ocean, carried on air currents to the Allegheny Plateau, Rigel currently nests in the last big curve of the Mon Valley, in Pittsburgh, PA. She grew up in Southern California, but has been a Pittsburgh transplant since 2007. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon, has exhibited work across the Rustbelt, and published her first book in February of 2019.
Rigel draws heavily from the visual vocabulary of the natural and built environments of her youth in California and life in Pittsburgh. Inspirations include the bright colors of both cityscapes and ocean creatures, which cause optical flicker and confusion; patterns like scales and fur from creatures who shy away from human interaction, or the decaying surface details of manmade forms; and the traditions and artforms of her Mexican heritage. Like Alejibres (those brightly painted Oaxacan wood carvings) or Dia De Los Muertos, bright saturated colors are optically light and emotionally inviting, but often adorn and frame more heavy emotional aspects of the colorful celebrations.
In both writing and painting, Rigel takes earnest gestures, simple colors, and everyday observations and expands them, lovingly, in scale and detail, affording a longer look and an intimate exploration of the many emotional currents that underpin together in brief moments.
Some consistent themes that run through the works are Anxiety, Flow, Queer Bodies, Self-Reflection, and Tranquil Connection.
Current Practice
Most of Rigel’s works fall under the category of Automatic Works. Impelled to step away from more rigidly conceptual work for a time, to set aside her preconceived notions of what art is supposed to look like, to develop a personal visual vocabulary and distinctive style and allow herself to inject more lively qualities into drawings and painting, Rigel developed an Automatic procedure.
Automatic Works are made without reference images and developed without specific intent (as much as is possible.) A layer of gestural lines is laid down on a surface, following a physical drawing impulse, a 'feeling’ in the muscles, like an itching for gestural release. After laying down the line work comes a period of reflection, until an image begins to surface and materialize. Emergent forms and patterns are made visible to others with pencils, ink, and paint, mostly through emphasis of the original linework. Free flowing lines, given depth and form through a meditative application of color and pattern, result in somehow believable illustrative spaces made from often physically impossible collisions of form.
Though it’s not immediately obvious from the resulting linear fray, punchy colors, and ‘cute’ creatures, the works run very close to the artist’s lived experience. The dynamic linework resulting from her gestures is a direct record of natural movements and the limitations of the artist’s body. These visual paths and simple palettes work together to freeze the mixture of emotions that were present in the foundational gestures. Automatic Paintings translate strong emotions into something far more approachable - breathing space in soft forms and enticing hues.
Visuals that appear pop and playful at a glance often provoke a hard to describe somatic reaction in viewers, as the residue of action and emotion rises to the surface over time. Longer looks reveal an intensity of movement, and mixtures of emotion peek through the softness forefronted by the process. Like a circular thought, an obsession over an idea or a feeling you just can’t let go, both viewer and artist get caught in a loop. The eye is redirected around and through, welcomed again and again for additional contemplation. Viewers are invited to define, revisit, and play within the visual space. The works retain the filter and sheen of the artist’s mindstate, but invite the viewer’s own emotional projections, recirculating the emotions of both artist and viewer on every view.
Automatic works are usually further transformed into art consumables, because Rigel is interested in art as a product, ways in which art that is becomes very accessible and widely distributed. The works often become trading coins, stickers, temporary tattoos, and postcards.
