R.H. Quaytman

Born in Boston in 1961, she holds a BA in painting from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (1983), before attending the postgraduate program in painting at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (1984), and the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques, Paris (1989). Since 2001, Quaytman’s paintings have been in many ways governed by a strict set of rules. Works are organized into focused groups referred to as “chapters,” which are sequentially numbered and uniquely titled. The paintings are executed on plywood panels that conform to a consistent set of geometrically interrelated dimensions. Screenprinted photographic imagery appears in each chapter, as do abstract compositions. Despite these rigorously held consistencies, Quaytman’s work is not reducible to a systematically applied set of rules. Instead, the artist uses these parameters to explore an array of subjects, while maintaining an overarching, ongoing investigation of the factors that enable a painting to generate meaning, whether they be its content, its mode of production, or the context in which it is encountered.