hilitehead

This is Raleigh Gardiner.

How to start,

Raleigh is one of the few artists whose works I am inspired by and admire. I had the opportunity to share a class with her a few years ago and got a chance to witness her quiet yet prolific work ethic. Her works have always possessed an aesthetic and thematic fluidity with growth that exemplify a true sense of exploration, freshness and vibrance – I cannot get enough. The lines, the color, the harmony and lyric join in “investigation of the liminal, intermediary zones of human experience that exist at the thresholds between our perception of reality and our subconscious.” Her surrealistic scenarios or “mindscapes,” present vivid, microcosmic visions of the inner theaters of our psychological worlds presented through fantasy where the boundaries between subject and object, human and animal, creature and landscape, Self and Other, remain wholly undifferentiated.

There is something exciting about talent, only a few are blessed with these fragile gifts like messengers with a mission spewing gold from all orifices wherever they walk. Talent needs nurturing and the right platform to thrive, sometimes difficult to achieve in this rigorous current of an industry. But I am confident she will travel far far lands in life, and I hope more people will get a chance to see and share her work along.

Here are a few pieces from her latest series – Desire and Fantasy: the Conditions of Reality between the Self and Other.