Northeastern professor Andrea Raynor’s exhibit “Remnants” is currently being hosted by Gallery@ Spencer Lofts, 60 Dudley Street in Chelsea, MA, through November 30.

This current body of work represents working with both photography and painting within a subtractive process.

The photographs are all found portraits from a cemetery in Venice, Italy. None of the images have been altered digitally; except to be cropped and enlarged. They were documented to demonstrate how little information could be conveyed, but still read as a portrait of a person. The process of time passing and different levels of decay slowly work the portrait away to the bare minimum of representation.

Raynor’s large scale paintings begin as fields of black. She then carves out form using gold paint, creating negative space. The resulting images are linear and gestural. The reduction of color to simply these two colors creates a strong graphic sensation. The goal of the painting is to see how much can be reduced and still have the painting portray an active gesture. Both the photographs and paintings use light to reduce the images.

Raynor has been teaching photography for the past 11 years at Northeastern as along with maintaining a painting studio for the past 10 years. Her background in photography has strongly influenced her approach to these paintings, as both forms allow her to use light as the subject of her work, as well as the instrument for creating reaction to the piece.

Gallery@ Spencer Lofts: 60 Dudley Street, Chelsea, MA 02150.
Gallery hours by appointment.

For more information please visit Gallery@ Spencer Lofts Website.