Ode to Andalusia # 4: The Plain Painting

Artist’s Bio Rachel Francis is a visual artist living and working in Toronto, Canada. Rachel was born and raised in Guyana. She moved to Canada when she was 17. She was educated in Canada at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. She has studied art with Canadian Artist, Martha Johnson and at Ontario College of Art with several teachers including Luca Bogdan. Emigration has left its imprint on her. When she is not painting she is working on her “fortress” -family life, poetry, art history, politics, dogs and travel. Rachel’s artwork is held in private collections in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Artist’s Statement Painting is for me a kinesthetic activity. E.H. Gombrich’s says we interpret and code the experience of our fellow creatures not visually but in muscular form. Painting has taught me that he is right. It is the foundation on which I find my answer to that age-old question of “how I know a painting is finished?” My answer is that I know it is finished, when I experience an almost kinesthetic empathy with its subject. I think what Jane Hirschfield says about poetry can be also said about the visual arts, a poem she says "plucks the interconnection of the experiencing self and all being” (Ten Windows, 2015)”. The same can be said about a painting.