Cassis 2015, oil on panel, 5 x 7 in.

Eleanor Ray is a painter living in Brooklyn. Her work has been shown in three solo exhibitions at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, NY, and in recent group exhibitions at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA; The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, NJ; Rothschild Fine Art, Tel Aviv; the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; and BRIC House, Brooklyn.

Question:

Your paintings typically incorporate a framing device within the work itself. Often a door or an archway creates a keen sense that you, the painter, are looking through and onto a structured view. Studiously looking at the world is an important part of your practice, but equally important is the formalized distance. Is emphasizing the distance between you and your subject important to you or is the latent intimacy more crucial?

Answer:

I think the latter. A framed view can bring the distant space closer, by putting the near and far right next to each other on the surface of the painting — the two might shift in space or seem to reverse themselves.

Ravenna Doors (San Vitale), 2014, oil on panel, 7 x 5 in.

I’m not consciously trying to emphasize a sense of distance from the subject, but I do think framed or distant views enable me to see something more clearly, as in those moments when you come upon a view of something for the first time or glimpse something through a doorway before you’re in the room. And there are related moments of clarity when you’ve been away from a place for a while and then return; it’s as if you can catch it by surprise and see it differently. There’s a natural intimacy to those moments, when you’re connecting with a place on an emotional or visual level before being immersed in it or thinking about its function.

Charlotte’s Studio with Sheets, 2013, oil on panel, 4 x 4 15/16 in.