Rebecca Sitar
www.rebeccasitar.com
@rebeccasitar
Statement:
My painting practice centres on art and embodiment, ways of seeing and poetics of an ontological nature. With an interest in the aesthetics and philosophies of seventeenth and nineteenth century Japanese art and poetry, and pre-renaissance paintings by Giotto and Fra Angelico, my work leans towards an apparent simplicity; pictorial forms are pared down often suspended in space inviting contemplative encounters.
Nothing has changed, Everything has changed non-sensical paradox: suggests to me an opportunity to reflect on how we experience time. My approach and interest in eastern philosophies has recently fused with theories formulated by phenomenologists Bergson and Heidegger. Bergson’s notion of unfolding time, where the past, present and future converge is connected to me in the making and reception of my paintings. Paintings hold the possibility of movement within stillness. They are containers of compressed time, records of elongated time and an amalgamation of time-spaces from different periods. Phenomenological and psychic transaction in making and viewing paintings becomes a central focus in my work. Literature and poetry sometimes permeate through my thoughts in making. On revisiting T.S.Eliot’s Four Quartets I was struck to the similarities to Bowie’s lyrics in ‘Sunday.’ T.S. Eliot was influenced by Bergson and its possible Bowie was influenced by T.S. Eliot.
In finishing the paintings Dome and Castaway the emblematic shapes coalesced into being and echoed for me apparitions envisaged in Eliot’s Burnt Norton ‘Only by the form, the pattern/Can words or music reach/The stillness, as a Chinese jar still moves/ perpetually in its stillness’
www.rebeccasitar.com
@rebeccasitar
Statement:
My painting practice centres on art and embodiment, ways of seeing and poetics of an ontological nature. With an interest in the aesthetics and philosophies of seventeenth and nineteenth century Japanese art and poetry, and pre-renaissance paintings by Giotto and Fra Angelico, my work leans towards an apparent simplicity; pictorial forms are pared down often suspended in space inviting contemplative encounters.
Nothing has changed, Everything has changed non-sensical paradox: suggests to me an opportunity to reflect on how we experience time. My approach and interest in eastern philosophies has recently fused with theories formulated by phenomenologists Bergson and Heidegger. Bergson’s notion of unfolding time, where the past, present and future converge is connected to me in the making and reception of my paintings. Paintings hold the possibility of movement within stillness. They are containers of compressed time, records of elongated time and an amalgamation of time-spaces from different periods. Phenomenological and psychic transaction in making and viewing paintings becomes a central focus in my work. Literature and poetry sometimes permeate through my thoughts in making. On revisiting T.S.Eliot’s Four Quartets I was struck to the similarities to Bowie’s lyrics in ‘Sunday.’ T.S. Eliot was influenced by Bergson and its possible Bowie was influenced by T.S. Eliot.
In finishing the paintings Dome and Castaway the emblematic shapes coalesced into being and echoed for me apparitions envisaged in Eliot’s Burnt Norton ‘Only by the form, the pattern/Can words or music reach/The stillness, as a Chinese jar still moves/ perpetually in its stillness’
Dome
30 x 36cm
Oil on panel
2021
30 x 36cm
Oil on panel
2021