About

Rana Rochat’s encaustic paintings evoke “a universal fragile balance between order and chaos, reason and spontaneity that my paintings try to capture. They are pictorial metaphors of this fragile balance using marks, forms, colors, as well as the luminosity and visual depth afforded by the encaustic medium.

The forms and marks are natural and seemingly familiar, yet they are nonspecific, not easy to label. I intend for them to be fluid, without fixed meanings. Within an environment of deep light and color, my goal is to create an experience that is pre-verbal, promoting pictorial awareness prior to any explicit formatting of perceptual experiences into narratives. I like to think of my paintings as visual poems.

My idea is that narratives sacrifice intuition, gut feelings and the profound experience of mystery that a painting has the potential to provide. My forms and marks, with their apparent weight, particular vitality, and inertia live in a luminous and transparent environment.”

My paintings create a visual environment inhabited by marks. These marks are gestural, not random. Unlike any other traces left by events in nature, these marks are the product of an intention. They are gestural marks. What interests me is what sets these marks apart, what gives them their particular vitality and potential symbolic meaning as standing for something else. In this process, I work on the way marks get their own vitality and elusive meaning, primarily in the way they interact with each other, but also in the way each of them individually interact with the encaustic surface that provides a  subtle, multi-layered space. This exploration entails a fragile balance between order and chaos, reason and spontaneity. My paintings intend to convey an aesthetic sense of this elusive yet necessary balance between randomness and order from which a dynamic presence emerges.

artist statement 2006
My vocabulary is one of marks, forms, colors, and luminosity. The forms and marks are natural and seemingly familiar, yet they are nonspecific, not easy to label. I intend for them to be fluid, without fixed meanings. In the triptychs I explore pictorial balance and visual relationships. Within an environment of deep light and colors, my goal is to create an experience that is pre-verbal, promoting pictorial awareness prior to any explicit formatting of perceptual experiences into narratives. I like to think of my paintings as visual poems. My idea is that narratives sacrifice intuition, gut feelings and the profound experience of mystery that a painting has the potential to provide. My forms and marks, with their apparent weight, particular vitality, and inertia live in a luminous and transparent environment that the encaustic medium affords.

Bio

Born in 1959 in Memphis, TN

1983 BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Museums and Public Collections:
Ibera Bank, New Orleans, LA
Bank Plus, Jackson, MS
The Landers Firm (law), Memphis, TN
Pacific Peninsula Group (development), San Francisco CA
Clark & Clark (corporate real estate), Memphis, TN
Kevin Hyneman Co. (residential development), Memphis TN
Cannon Wright Blount (CPAs), Memphis, TN
Odom Land Management (hotels), Shreveport, AL
Mercer Capital (investments), Memphis, TN
NSA Corporation, Memphis, TN
Paragon National Bank, Memphis,TN
Alston & Bird, Atlanta, GA
Blue Point Restaurant, Atlanta, GA
FedEx Forum, Memphis, TN
Hyatt Hotels, Washington, DC
Intercontinental Hotel, Atlanta, GA
Neiman Marcus, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, King of Prussia, PA; Atlanta
Nordstrom, Charlotte, NC; Austin, TX; Atlanta, GA
Pfizer, Memphis, TN
Saks Fifth Avenue, Miami, FL
Safeco Insurance Company, Atlanta, GA
Southern Energy Corp., Atlanta, GA
Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Atlanta, GA
Equifax, Atlanta, GA
Fidelity Investments, Memphis, TN
Hyde Foundation, Memphis, TN
Cummins Mid-South Headquarters, Memphis, TN
Paragon Bank, Raleigh, NC
Winston and Strawn Law Firm, San Francisco, CA
Barry Real Estate, Atlanta, GA
Isakson Barnhardt Developers, Atlanta,GA

Solo Exhibitions:
2008 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2007 Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum , ID
2006 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2005 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2005 Lyon College, Batesville AR
2005 Gail Severn, Ketchum, ID
2004 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2003 Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR (Rana Rochat and Ed Moses)
2003 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2002 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2001 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2001 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2000 Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA

Group Exhibitions:

2008 The Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY
2008 Los Angeles Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Hidell Brooks Gallery, Charlotte, NC
2007 Chicago Art Fair, Chicago, IL
2007 Works on Paper, New York, NY
2007 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006 Chicago Art Expo Scope, Miami, FL
2006 San Francisco International Art Fair
2006 Scope Art Fair, New York, NY
2006 Gallery Artists, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2006 Selected Artists, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
2005 Convergence of Contemporary Painting, Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, Jacksonville, FL
2005 Fay Gold 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2005 Scope, New York, NY
2005 Palm Beach Contemporary Art Show, Palm Beach, FL
2004 Gallery Artists, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta,GA
2004 San Francisco International Art Exposition, San Francisco,CA
2003 The Armory Show, New York, NY 15th Anniversary
2003 Works on Paper, The Park Avenue Armory, NY
2003 Palm Beach Art Fair, Palm Beach, FL
2002 San Francisco International Art Fair, San Francisco, CA
2001 Palm Beach International Art Fair, Palm Beach, FL
2001 Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA

Articles and Reviews:
Memphis Commercial Appeal, February 2008
Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 2006
Memphis Commercial Appeal, February 2006
Memphis Flyer, February 2006
Vessels of Meanings, an essay by Jerry Cullum, September 2006
New American Paintings, July 2003
Memphis Business Journal
Abstraction: Ed Moses and Rana Rochat, Gallery of Contemporary Art
Lewis and Clark College, November 2001
New American Paintings 2001