Jude Rae, SL 434, 2021. Oil on linen, 66 x 72cm. Courtesy: the artist and Two Rooms, Auckland.

Two Rooms is pleased to present a new suite of still life paintings by Jude Rae. As the artist has noted, “the still life studio functions as a laboratory of sorts, a space of stability where light can be controlled, and objects considered in relation to one another in the context of the painting at hand.” We comprehend Rae’s still lifes within the tradition of realism, one characterised by notions of honesty and precision, seen here through the contested prism of Modernism and a more contemporary sensibility. Each painting is a very specific kind of object: each a two-dimensional image depicting three-dimensional space, each also an object with its own specific material character, and existing within a rarefied history of objects. The non-narrative imagery Rae employs allows the attention to dwell on the formal and material aspects of representational painting, encouraging a more reflective and considered approach to the complexities of visual experience.  Paintings about painting itself.

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