Rebecca Land Soodak’s art draws from rich experiences and inspirations, including her fascination with the spectrum of emotions and the streets of New York City. Neighbors, friends and family are painted in a manner which is at once raw and uniquely refined. Her work references Folk, Fauvism, and aspects of the figurative tradition by artists including Alice Neel, Ben Shahn, Richard Diebenkorn, Elizabeth Peyton and Marlene Dumas. Charged and tender moments, glances and exchanges are rendered in bold paint strokes whose energy and action captures the complex interior worlds and unspoken moments within the quiet intensity and din of the city.
Her signature saturated color and confident, rough mark function as a type of 21st century homage to the painting legacy of The Paris School a century ago. Her artwork brings into greater focus and synergy insights in psychology and sexuality, woven through her interests in art and art history.
Each portrait is as much a true picture of Soodak’s subject, as it is an expression of the artist, and an extension of the unpredictable and ever changing world in which we live.