Rebecca Sitar’s practice is historically within the discipline of painting. Neither figurative nor purely abstract, Sitar’s practice has been described as ‘hermetic’ in its resistance to following any single orthodoxy. The paintings are self evidently process led. Their surfaces bear the trace of a post-Richter detachment and yet they also show things that seem profoundly personal. Particular, emblematic objects or incidents in paint are held up for inspection, requiring and eliciting a subjective response.
Sources for the work show a sympathy towards simplicity, the formal balance of a Japanese print, the figure/ground relationship in early Renaissance painting. They are also about continually testing the possibilities of the fluid matter of paint to arrive at a moment of ‘stillness’.
More recently Sitar has worked with photography. Her photographs in an inflection of the leitmotif of her paintings, bring objects from outside and carefully positions them, stages them so that the re-contextualised object becomes ‘other’ in scale and in essence. Archival digital prints were selected for a group show titled Sublime : RickCopsey, Pat Flynn, Nick Jordan & Jacob Cartwright, Rebecca Sitar at Puskinskaya-10 Arts Centre, St Petersburg, Russia (2014) and Oriel Davies Open (2014
Sitar has exhibited in a number of notable solo and group shows across the UK and Europe; John Moores Painting Prize 2014, Walker Art Gallery; Oriel Davies Open 2014, Present & Elsewhere, (2006) Galerija Karas, Zagreb, Croatia. ‘Conscious Fiction’ Eagle Gallery EMH Arts, London, Slow-Burn- Meaning & Vision in Contemporary British Abstract Painting The Mead Gallery, Beyond the Endgame Manchester Art Gallery. In 2001 Eagle Gallery EMH Arts, London took on representation of her work, through whom she has shown regularly; solo shows include Present & Elsewhere II , Hinterland and Ritual .
Her work is held in both private and public collections including Deutsche Bank AG, London; DLA London; Manchester Art Gallery.
Feather on Altar oil on linen panel 25.5 x 35.5cm (2013)
