RAYCHAEL STINE AND JENNIFER SULLIVAN
THE TENDERNESSLos Angeles | AUGUST 24TH- OCT 5th
“In the paintings where it's there—the tenderness—I work for it. I'm not afraid of it. If I could put my bleeding heart in there, I would.”
– Susan Rothenberg
– Susan Rothenberg
The genesis of this exhibition can be traced back to late 2022, when Raychael Stine received a precious gift of paints from the New Mexico studio of the late painter Susan Rothenberg, who passed away in May 2020. Recognizing the profound significance of this inheritance, Raychael chose to share a portion of these paints with Jennifer Sullivan, knowing their shared admiration for Rothenberg's work. Both artists regarded this gift as transformative—a sacred transmission from their artistic hero, sparking a new phase in their creative development.
This exhibition marks the public debut of the paintings created with these materials, conceived as valentines or love letters to Susan Rothenberg, to the act of painting itself, and to the emotional expressiveness that guided Rothenberg's work. The collected works reflect each artists' individual interpretations and resonances with Rothenberg's enduring legacy, who continues to inspire and shape their artistic journeys in unique and generative ways.
Raychael Stine’s sensual, ebullient abstractions of distilled hidden dogs and exuberant flower gardens toss around and reconfigure painterly conventions of landscape, portraiture, and painterly approaches to depth scale, and level of legibility. The paintings embody the feelings of wonder, awe, and joy, and become hovering pictures of transitional time.
This body of paintings serve as both fantasy thank you notes to Susan Rothenberg and valentines to her cherished dogs from the past. Dogs, a recurring motif symbolizing physicality and intuitive spirit, are central in Stine's work, echoing Rothenberg’s exploration of animal subjects throughout her career. Each painting, in a square format, features a heart embedded in both border and composition, often portraying two dogs in tender embrace. Grounds for the works are built upon fragments of album covers that can be found in Stine’s and Rothenberg’s music collection. known elements like sky and landscape blend with the dog figures, occasionally incorporating human forms like arms or breasts embracing the painterly animals.
Inspired by Stine’s first favorite painting, Rothenberg’s Cabin Fever (1976), the largest two-panel work in the exhibition depicts a dog in profile, head to the sky, amidst a swirling cosmic garden of joy. This painting marks a pivotal exploration for Stine, using Rothenberg’s influence and ethos as a foundational ground rather than mere aesthetic reference.
If paintings are prayers, as Rothenberg once asserted, then the artist’s studio must be the altar. Jennifer Sullivan’s recent paintings capture intimate compositional moments inspired by spontaneous arrangements of materials, mementos, and gifted objects she has assembled into a makeshift painting shrine within the sanctuary of her home-studio. This "shrine" prominently features a portrait and quote by Rothenberg as a central element, serving as visual reminders of artistic integrity and encouragement to persevere. Set against walls transformed into varying shades of pink, these works evoke a metaphysical space of creation infused with love and personal history.
The arrival of gifted paints and brushes from Rothenberg’s studio sparked Sullivan’s contemplation of the symbolic power of her creative space and its nuanced details—a theme also explored by Rothenberg and earlier by Matisse. In contrast to her predecessors, Sullivan portrays her studio in fragmented, close-up views rather than depicting it in its entirety, within a rose- colored atmosphere that exudes soft, feminine energy. Her approach to painting is playful and romantic, a reflection of her artistic evolution. Within her emotional and creative realm, where everyday objects and personal reflections converge, the cat replaces the dog as a companion figure — a symbol of femininity and unwavering authenticity