#rebouche1989

[rebeccarebouche]

It's Friday and I wanted to post a new image from the collection today but there just wasn't time. Packing up paintings and bound for New York in T minus 12 hours ✌🏼️🗽❤️ #Rebouche1989 (at Studio ARABI)

[rebeccarebouche]

The next painting in my 1989 collection is number 2 on the album: Blank Space

This painting is about the complicated nature of perception after the battle of a relationship has run it’s course. The quest for true love is often full of extremes, and it’s those times of triumph and defeat that become the story we tell. “So it’s gonna be forever, or it’s gonna go down in flames.” We take sides and push the envelope, trying to prove it’s one way or another, hero or villain? Which one will you be this time? Each new love is a chance to start the game over. We go into battle half-knowing that our ally will become our enemy, eventually. The irony for me always lies in the fact that with each new partner, we blindly declare a bond from the start, and charge headstrong into the front lines. When the tables turn, the clouds become swamps, and one of us walks away with the bleeding heart.

“Love’s a game, do you wanna play?”

Blank Space, mixed media on canvas, 48″ x 48″ Prints available now

I’ll write your name, Rebecca

[rebeccarebouche]

What does it mean to be inspired by someone? It is humane, sacred and mysterious. It happened without permission or introduction. Suddenly I was holding a rose from her bouquet, but it's my blood on the thorn. I made this collage in my 1989 sketchbook as a meditation on that sacred ground, with whole affinity and reverence for @taylorswift (and Frida of course). I did not stop to think "this is good" or "this is bad", I just found myself holding the rose. So I bled. #Rebouche1989

"...how I hope you can feel happy and honored by my attempt to turn your stories into my visual allegories. But in the least, I hope you don’t feel cheated or offended. My intentions are pure. My motivations are noble. And I am deeply humbled to stand in your light." -excerpt from my "Dear Taylor" http://rebeccarebouche.tumblr.com/post/140846682358/dear-taylor

[rebeccarebouche]

"This Love" has come and gone so many times I've lost count. I wait on the shore but it always feels like I'm drowning. This love is a ghost-ship and I am the anchor. My heart is the deepest blue. I'd hold my breath for you. #Rebouche1989 #ThisLove

[rebeccarebouche]

I posted this photo exactly one year ago, from Balmorhea State Park in Texas. I was on the road trip that inspired the 1989 collection. I listened to @taylorswift and @misterryanadams albums back to back countless times while driving alone into these views. The paintings all appeared to me in the landscape of my mind, as if they were a gift. The compositions were never really mine, but I became their keeper. In 2 weeks I'll be in New York hanging these paintings on the walls of 208 Bowery. I hope I've done the right thing, seeing this through. After all, I've given a year of my life to this project, in hopes of capturing and laying to rest the past decade of loving. 💙 #Rebouche1989

[rebeccarebouche]

Originally I had no intention of doing the polaroids. I had visions of dreamy Tim Walker style photoshoots to accompany the collection of paintings. But in the end, there's never enough time for all my ideas. The Polaroids were an obvious solution to quickly capturing behind-the-scenes and exploring the conceptual nature of #Rebouche1989 Just having that Polaroid 600 in my hand brought me back to an earlier time in my life. The familiar sound of that little squarish picture swooshing out the front felt like the cataloging of memories. The way a Polaroid looks today, compared with digital, even FEELS like a memory of a dream of a memory. And that's how my paintings feel to me: A picture of a memory of a Dream of a memory. Did it really happen? Doesn't matter. Is it real? Doesn't matter. "Once you are real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always." (To borrow from The Velveteen Rabbit") Even a dream is real... somehow. Xo, Rebecca

[rebeccarebouche]

The next painting in my 1989 collection is number 12 on the album: I Know Places

This painting is about the relationship that you feel would work out in the end if you could just find some place to get away. When it seems like haters are clouding the skies over your hearts, it's clear that "love is a fragile little flame, it could burn out." It's about that feeling, of being on the run with someone you love. The feeling that united, you could go anywhere, and survive there together. Even the scariest woods would be safer than being out in the open, vulnerable to attack. Not the real kind of attack our ancestors knew, but the kind that comes today, in the form of rumors, social media messes, lies and toxic speculation. If you could just run, away from real life, if you could just be together, you might just have a chance.

"You know for me, it's always you... And I know for you, it's always me."

For me this painting also captures the feeling that I sometimes get when I'm trying to be brave. Sometimes to be brave, I first have to go and hide. I build up my inner courage, and then return to the world blazing with my iron shield in hand.  I Know Places where I can hide, where I can grow armor in the night, where I can wake to the forest and choose when it's time to fight. I painted this painting in one of those places – In my scary safe woods, where I became strong enough to share it with the world. If you can metaphorically outrun criticism and damaging negativity, you are finally Onto Something. "Let them say what they want, we won't hear it."

"They are the hunters, we are the foxes. And we run!"

I Know Places, acrylic on linen, 18″ x 24″ Prints available now

Be the fox, Rebecca

[rebeccarebouche]

I asked a friend if it was even necessary, to say all this. To reveal the backstory. To even go deep at all. She said "that tension of truth, that's the art right?" #tellyourstories #Rebouche1989 The art is not just the painting, or the photograph, or the sculpture or performance. The art is you coming clean.