Rebecca Cuming

Rebecca Cuming has two major bodies of work.  One is more representational and the other is extremely abstract.  In both of these bodies of work, there is a common thread of colors and textures. In Cuming’s representational art, there is thick and thin paint and dramatic textures that strikingly represent extremely subtle atmospheres, landscapes and other compilations.  The color, texture, line and composition each have their own special meaning to Cuming.  Each brush stroke is a masterpiece.  This same mastery of the paint and painting carries over to her Abstract art.

In Cuming’s abstract art, the caution and detail taken for her representational artworks carries over.  It is so extremely difficult to get the depth of feeling in color, composition line and texture when you aren’t actually painting any one thing.  Still, the variety of paint effects and boldness of every painting makes the representational pieces feel overly controlled and predictable.  The abstract pieces are where Cuming can really let out the painting techniques that are bursting to come out in her representational work, but the subject simply won’t allow it.

Placing two pieces, one abstract and one representational, next to each other one can find very similar, interesting color palates and textures.  The similarities prove her deliberateness of every abstract.  Meaning varies dramatically from abstract to abstract, however, Cuming does not share these meanings with us so we are left to create our own meaning.  She says that it does not matter what she attaches to the painting for meaning, like our own reflections, each person will see something different.