Raymie Iadevaia

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

When I start a painting, I have two impossible desires, to paint everything and to use every color. Like a cat brushing its head on people and things, I paint to get closer to the textures of the world. Quick and prolonged gestures of staining, smearing, scraping, and scumbling layers of oil paint are made to create something fascinating. Variegating the surface with a multiplicity of marks and brushstrokes, hazy impressions of imagery culled from memory and imagination come forward. Meandering hiking trails, dense plant life, strange architectures, colorful creatures, faraway cities. Working into the vague passages, toning the surface with color, a mood and sense of motion is discovered. When the paint dries and the hazy beginning sets, the forms become concrete, but friable. Then the slow process of painting begins. Frenetic, nervous, jittery movements from the wrist and fingers are made, repetitive utterances like the casting of spells, to animate the putty of painted images. Bridging the conduit for the paintings to transform and transport into distant but strangely familiar places to experience.

Artwork