I’ve been following Erika Ranee’s work since the mid-90s after I saw a handful of her works in person throughout a collector’s home. I recall a few key elements from that earlier work: medium to large scale, painted using a poured technique, and figurative or rather stenciled elements like references of figures and faces. Early on, Ranee’s work recalled a similarity to Donald Baechler’s. Think of a series of expressively painted applications layered upon one another and then codifying with a silhouette or stenciled image atop the coated process. I lost track of Ranee’s work for over a decade, then I came across it when she had a studio at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Program in 2011. I’ve been following her work and have had the pleasure of seeing it evolve steadily. Since my first encounter with the work, she has done away with a direct reference to figuration and seems to use titles to locate outside influences. Her work has grown, and her career is blossoming.
Feelings, Ranee’s current show at The Little Gallery at The Art Center at Duck Creek, consists of intimate size paintings that range from 5″ x 7″ to 12″ x 9.” Like in her larger scale paintings, her process and materials remain consistent utilizing acrylic, ink, shellac, and cut paper over canvas. The paintings are executed similarly—a series of painterly passages with various mediums are laid down, often based on a previous layer or layers. Drips from the recent past have been relocated to another color or medium. The painting process is responsive yet unplanned. Ranee allows drips to defy gravity by transforming them into tendril-like forms. She releases a spontaneous painterly passage and then responds to it with other passages, sometimes layering with collage elements detritus from other unresolved works. She repeats the method and process until there is some resolution or balance. The passes and spills of medium retain organic shapes resembling formations one would see in the natural world. At the same time, at other times, they sit on the cusp of transforming into a recognizable image. The layered palette approaches elements of light suggestive of space, and we see evidence of time unfolding over the surface.
These paintings are similar to improvisational jazz music; a tenor saxophone player takes a solo in response to their standup bass player setting up the foundation of a particular beat. While her work brings to mind that it is a very structured free form of jazz, and elements in nature are not. Perhaps they are an organic-tempered feast for the eyes. One medium that remains consistent throughout her work is shellac, which is utilized in every painting in the show. As in music, the shellac medium may. signify time signature. Shellac retains an amber glow over the white-primed ground. One is reminded of the medium’s origins; the female lac beetle produces it before it is collected and processed into flakes or refined into other materials, such as a painting medium. The medium is the residual of a secretion process; the beetle leaves a trace of her presence.
The titles of each of the paintings refer back to specific nouns—Langston’s Tree, Renee’s House, The Dinner Party. The titles suggest very specific moments. When one recalls a memory or a feeling those emotions and triggers are often like a burst, a short moment, sometime intense. It would seem that the paintings produced evoke those feelings or memories of Ranee; this is punctuated further by their small scale. Each painting no larger than 12″ in any direction retains itself as pockets of feelings or memories. These paintings are places, spaces, and individuals experienced by the artist but unknown to the viewer. They are genuinely the residue of one’s personal experience.
Being in the Hamptons and recognizing the complexity of the work, one is reminded of the period in which De Kooning first began spending time in East Hampton and in the Springs and made work reflecting on his experience from the locations he visited. Ranee has cited De Kooning as an early influence on her work. While descriptively, they are similar, what separates them is clearly and distinct. Erika Ranee, who is doing work with the influence of her environment and experience, is a testament to the sources of many artists who have come before her. However, her knowledge is of a painter who is versed in her medium and her own process. It is clear when looking at the surfaces of these paintings, she understands her work and the flow of her studio practice. The work remains relatively abstract; however, it is the culmination of seeing her thought process play out on the surface that we recognize the decisions made are unique. The titles are mere suggestions that these paintings are abridged to a specific story.
All photos courtesy of Gary Mamay and the Art Center at Duck Creek, East Hampton, NY.
ERIKA RANEE: Feelings at Duck Creek July 13 – August 11, 2024 The Little Gallery at The Art Center at Duck Creek, East Hampton
About the writer: Artist and educator Riad Miah was born in Trinidad and lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited in the Tri-state area and abroad. He has contributed to Two Coats of Paint, the Brooklyn Rail, Vasari 21, and Art Savvy.