Botanical Transformations
Who is Rebekah Callaghan?
Philadelphia-based artist Rebekah Callaghan paints flowers and foliage, but her subject matter is color, light and the passage of time. Painting from gardens and plants, these recognizable elements are reduced to their most skeletal forms enmeshed with bright bursts of patterning and muted tones of suggested shadows.
Made with many layers of paint, each responding to the layer before, the work calls to the complexity of change and the beauty of transformation. These layered, lustrous botanical compositions ask the viewer to look closely and carefully, bringing attention to both the act of painting and the joy of looking.
In the artist’s words, the best discoveries emerge when she replaces assurance and habits with questions and reflection. Heavily observational approaches are swapped for a deeper immersion in the paintings’ structure, allowing space for reaction and time for sentiment. More often than not, this means reworking layers, reinventing space, and making room for spontaneity until the paintings eventually surfaced. Some of the paintings are filled with commotion, others with peace. They’re the evidence of the artist’s search for unknown spaces, of leaning in to letting go, and realizing the gift of being there for it.
Rebekah Callaghan (b. 1985) has been included in numerous exhibitions across the United States. She has forthcoming exhibitions in Bellport Village, NY and Sirmione, Italy. Callaghan’s paintings have been featured in Forget Good Magazine (Issue 09), the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Title Magazine. Callaghan received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
Callaghan’s Inspiration
Drawing predominantly from nature and music, Philadelphia-based artist Rebekah Callaghan uses color to explore space, tenor, and touch. Her work is heavily influenced by an observational practice, though her paintings exist between representation and abstraction. Rebekah’s work evolves through multiple painted layers. This process includes reworking passages, reinventing spaces, and leaving room for spontaneity, but it also allows space for reaction and time for sentiment. Always in search of discovering something new, Rebekah hopes her paintings invite viewers to wander through color and space to celebrate both the act of painting and the joy of looking
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