Rebecca Gomez

“Painting is an act of exploration for me, a celebration of seeing and feeling and being curious. It is like another

language. When a piece of work is finished, I want to give the viewer not an explication of opinion on what is, but to open a dialog, and to encourage the next question.

There are many layers in my work, and often some transparency. One painting is usually several paintings, done one over the other, allowing me to explore different aspects of the subject. This acknowledges that perception is not fixed, but changes with time and state of mind. I hope the final image makes one think of process or movement or flow. When you come back to look at a painting the second time, I hope it looks different than it did when you first saw it.

My painting tends to be figurative when it is about seeing and exploring the external world. My landscapes, interiors, animals, and still life subjects are not realistic, yet they contain recognizable images. Recognition allows connection – a place to enter the mystery, the story, the meditation.

I use abstraction as a means to explore the internal – subjects like relationship, personality, ideas, or a state of mind. My Interior Portraits are pictures of someone’s felling or perceiving state at the time of our interview, intended to deepen self-knowledge for the subject. These paintings may incorporate figurative and abstract work in the same painting.”

Rebecca Gomez is a second-generation Californian who has been drawing and painting since she was a young child. Extreme nearsightedness that went undiagnosed until she was about twelve may have influenced her way of seeing. When she first saw the world with corrected vision, it was an unwelcome change; she had grown to prefer supplying the details from imagination.

Rebecca had classes in fine art at Chouinard Art Institute while still a high school student, and later took classes at Moorpark College, CSUN, and UCLA. She has been influenced by the work of Matisse, Monet, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keeffe, Wolf Kahn, and Robert Burridge, whose diversity in ways of seeing and painting has been an inspiration to her. After a successful career in business, which included graphic arts and marketing, she decided to pursue the career in fine arts that had been her desire since childhood. Rebecca lives and paints in the Santa Ynez Valley. Her work is in private collections and has been exhibited at the Gallery Los Olivos, the Encino Terrace Center gallery space, Santa Barbara Artwalk, Art at Grand Tales, Tatiana Maria Gallery, Patrick’s Side Street, the Groves Gallery in Solvang, the Elverhoj Museum, and the artist’s studio.