Rebecca Sira Studio

painting

  • Encaustic painting of a northern pygmy owl perched on a branch, set against a warm brown ground.

    encaustic fauna

    A series of bird portraits made for the Audubon Society’s Wild Arts Festival (2010) in Portland, using the same encaustic process as the encaustic flora paintings but built differently. Each bird started as a watercolor and colored pencil drawing, something I was enjoying with the product label illustrations I was commissioned to make. The birds…

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  • Wax paper flower cascade beside a doorway with three encaustic paintings, See installation entry

    see

    My first installation, made for a group show at the Manor of Art at Milepost 5 in Portland, August 14-23, 2009. Before it became studio space, the building had been a senior care facility left empty for years. Artists were each given a room, bathroom, or hallway to convert. The space was filthy and smelled…

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  • Abstract painting in deep teal and ochre with a pale luminous form and fine linear marks.

    early abstracts

    Acrylic paintings with charcoal and other drawing mediums, made through the early to mid-2000s as the abstract figurative work gave way to less identifiable compositions built from color, gesture, and mark-making. This smaller-scale work would eventually lead to larger-format abstract expressionist paintings that came later in my practice.

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  • Mixed medium abstract figurative piece, a pale central figure divided by a dark vertical line against a warm fragmented ground (left side) Sepia-toned charcoal drawing, close view of a woman's torso rendered in flowing, hair-like linear marks (right side)

    figurative abstracts

    Late 1990s, early 2000s work in acrylic, conte crayon, and charcoal, drawn directly from the live figure and broken apart through gesture, color, and mark-making until the form holds together by feel rather than likeness. Beginning painting by abstract figurative work led to less identifiable abstract paintings.

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