signs and symbols

Rachael Catharine Anderson: Orchard  

October 19 - November 25, 2023        

Opening Reception:
October 19, 2023
6:00 - 8:00pm

signs and symbols is pleased to present Orchard, a solo exhibition by Rachael Catharine Anderson. A recent graduate of the Yale MFA program in painting (2022), the exhibition marks the artist's first comprehensive solo exhibition with the gallery and in New York City. Part one of a two-part exhibition surveying Anderson's seasonal practice, Orchard consists of a collection of "plant portraits" made en plein air on an orchard in central Ohio. Raised on a flower farm and apple orchard, Anderson has become particularly attuned to the subtle shifts between seasons and the inevitable cycles of growth and decay. Abandoning the four walls of her studio, she spends the warm summer months painting en plein air in Ohio. During the cold winter, adapting to the weather, her process shifts to an indoor practice where she paints from carefully arranged still lifes that she orchestrates in her studio in New Haven, Connecticut. Part two of the exhibition will follow in March 2024, focused on winter still lifes.

For this exhibition, the artist has created seven new paintings — portraits of various plants softly rendered impressionistically upon abstracted grounds. All the plants were found in her family’s orchard and permaculture farm, painted in situ. Various cultivated and native plants of the Midwest are featured including an apple tree, milkweed, datura, sunflowers, pokeweed and the native pawpaw.

Anderson’s paintings come out of a rich tradition of botanical painting and scientific observation. Notable old master practitioners include the Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch in the early to mid-eighteenth century, with her fantastical compositions, and in the early nineteenth century the French artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté painted his famous Roses and Lilies — both are considered to have created some of the most celebrated examples of the genre. But unlike the old masters, Anderson’s keen powers of observation focus instead on the effect that each plant has to the viewer en plein air. Her objective, differing completely from the old masters, was to capture both the atmosphere, the effects of light at the time of day along with the emotional effect that spending time with the plants and flowers in the orchard elicits.

Her aim was not to scientifically present what the orchard had lain before her, but to capture the experience of what each plant was exhibiting to her as she spent time painting them. When discussing her work, Anderson references the luxurious treatment of paint in any of John Singer Sargent’s society portraits of early nineteenth-century women as inspiration, which is evident in her brushwork. She considers each work to be an affectionate portrait of the plant; her intention was to give each vegetal-being personality depending on how their leaves lay, how their stems bowed, the subtle movements of their bodies and how the accumulation of light rendered over time might capture the atmosphere in each work.

Additionally, several of the works in the exhibition are larger than traditional easel paintings that plein air artists employ. This exhibition includes works of various sizes, but all rendered in a 1:1 scale, thus presenting the viewer with an encounter of canvases that represent the actual sizes of the real-life plants being considered. The scale is ambitious for painting outdoors, which Anderson intended to challenge the idea of traditional plein air painting. She further challenges the tradition of botanical painting by choosing instead a looser treatment of paint, somewhat thicker and decidedly unconcerned with or driven by representing scientific detail. The realization of these goals leaves the viewer with seven portraits of plants far more concerned with the experience of the thing represented and less with a “true account.”

While rooted in a rich tradition of botanical painting, Anderson’s paintings reveal a far more personal and empathetic approach to her organic muses. Although painted from direct observation at 1:1 scale, her paintings are not hyperrealistic reproductions — described as "a love letter to plants," the portraits are sensual rather than scientific, depicting friends rather than specimens. For Anderson, what is most important is the aura and integral essence of being there — that’s why she never paints from photographs.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
— William Blake, from Auguries of Innocence, 1803

rachael catharine anderson is a 2022 MFA graduate from the Painting and Printmaking program in the Yale School of Art. She makes oil paintings that explore the aesthetic dimension between human and non-human relationships. Her work, painted from close observation of objects, displays elements of enchantment and nuance, uncertainty, wonder and fascination for the drama of ecologies. Anderson has previously exhibited in Milan and the US, including Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York. Her paintings are also included in major private collections in the US and Europe. She currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut.