Rebekah Callaghan’s latest series, Surfaced, brings to the forefront themes of discovery and rebirth. In the artist’s words, the paintings materialized one she surrendered her expectations of what they should be and leaned into what they were becoming. In search of discovering something new, Callaghan challenges what feels or appears too familiar to get beyond the boundaries of where she has been, one brushstroke at a time.

Still drawing predominantly from nature and music, she utilizes color to uncover space, tenor, and temperature. The best discoveries emerge when she replaces assurance and habits with questions and reflection. Heavily observational approaches are swapped for a deeper immersion in the paintings’ structure, allowing space for reaction and time for sentiment. More often than not, this means reworking layers, reinventing space, and making room for spontaneity until the paintings eventually surfaced. Some of the paintings are filled with commotion, others with peace. They’re the evidence of the artist’s search for unknown spaces, of leaning in to letting go, and realizing the gift of being there for it.

Philadelphia-based artist Rebekah Callaghan paints flowers and foliage, but her subject matter is color, light and the passage of time. Painting from gardens and plants, these recognizable elements are reduced to their most skeletal forms enmeshed with bright bursts of patterning and muted tones of suggested shadows.

Made with many layers of paint, each responding to the layer before, the work calls to the complexity of change and the beauty of transformation. These layered, lustrous botanical compositions ask the viewer to look closely and carefully, bringing attention to both the act of painting and the joy of looking.

In the artist’s words, the paintings materialized one she surrendered her expectations of what they should be and leaned into what they were becoming. In search of discovering something new, Callaghan challenges what feels or appears too familiar to get beyond the boundaries of where she has been, one brushstroke at a time. The best discoveries emerge when she replaces assurance and habits with questions and reflection. Heavily observational approaches are swapped for a deeper immersion in the paintings’ structure, allowing space for reaction and time for sentiment. More often than not, this means reworking layers, reinventing space, and making room for spontaneity until the paintings eventually surfaced. Some of the paintings are filled with commotion, others with peace. They’re the evidence of the artist’s search for unknown spaces, of leaning in to letting go, and realizing the gift of being there for it.

Rebekah Callaghan (b. 1985) has been included in numerous exhibitions across the United States. She has forthcoming exhibitions in Bellport Village, NY and Sirmione, Italy. Callaghan’s paintings have been featured in Forget Good Magazine (Issue 09), the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Title Magazine. Callaghan received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.