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Caitlin Brigid Rice
USA
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“Creativity is the religion of my family."
Caitlin Brigid Rice is a self-taught artist. Born to very creative parents who were attending Black Mountain College at the time of her birth in Asheville, North Carolina. Her Mother was studying weaving, modern dance, and poetry. Her father was studying sculpture, writing, anthropology, and architecture. Caitlin’s uncle studied painting at Black Mountain and later taught painting there. He was an abstract expressionist.
BIRTH OF LIGHT | Acrylic
$2,000.00
36 X 60
This painting is a meditation for me. I spent quite a bit of time on it and through the whole process I felt at peace with the process. For me it is about light and elevated consciousness .
Caitlin’s family later moved to Los Angeles, California, and discovered this beautiful place, Topanga Canyon to live in. Many artists, musicians, and writers often find their homes in Topanga and some of these people also became a part of the artist’s upbringing. It was an exciting childhood in its creativity. However, it also contained insecurity because these artistic people tend to bend the rules in order to make life fit them in their own wild ways.
WHIRLWIND | Acrylic
$2,000.00
50 X 40
Whirlwind felt very dramatic to me as it developed. Starting with the depth of the black and moving to the network of lines that I applied. I had had an image in my mind before I began the painting of an all black canvas that I would then throw white paint on with a string mop head. This worked so well! I had a blast doing it. I then finished it with some great detail with liquid paint.
The artist and her siblings grew up painting, drawing, and writing. The children also took care of all the animals and the vegetation they had planted in their garden for fresh food. It was an earthy existence and if someone looked at the photographs of the children from that time, they all looked like ragged urchins running wild.
“Music, sculpture, color, movement, and light run through my veins.”
Rice has always loved dancing and painting. While growing up, little Caitlin’s dearest wish was to become a modern dancer one day. She lived and breathed rhythm so much so that she also had a name for herself, “Woman at the Mercy of the Rhythm.” Until she was 20, dancing always came first for her, and painting second.
AUTUMN LIGHT | Acrylic
$1,700.00
48 X 36
This painting came about from a glimpse of a little tree on the roadside. Fall was taking hold and the colors were coming out. I love rocks and trees together so I gave this little one a rock friend. I worked on making the colors glow as they did the day I glimpsed the tree as I whizzed by it. I find I am moved to express the seasons as they come.
I wanted to express movement and color on this day that I started this. I started with a quiet color of blue and moved on to wake it up with orange and yellow.
I had a lot of fun painting this because I kept moving forward with change and interruption of what had come before. the balloons sailed into my mind at the very end and made me laugh.
THREE BALLOONS GO OUT ON THE TOWN | Acrylic
$2,200.00
48 X 48
Caitlin expresses both harmony and wildness in her work. The harmonic work is a form of meditation for her, coming from a quiet, centered place within her. The wild work feels like a rush of energy going through her, reminiscents of time when she rode her horse bareback without saddle, at breakneck speed through the mountains of Topanga. It is all about energy– sometimes it is wild and sometimes it is quiet.
“I have an image of creativity: I am sitting at the bank of a great rushing river and whenever I choose, I can put my hand in the water and connect to the “Creative.” It is always available; we just need to reach out and touch it. To me, the ‘Creative’ is God.”
“I have forever been a prolific dreamer - always paying attention to the messages my dreams carry. Sometimes when I am sleeping, I see visions of what I will paint next. It could be the lines, or the colors, or just the feeling of it."
For a major part of Caitlin’s life, painting and drawing were just something that she always did and it made her happy. The turning point in her life was her 60th birthday. Her sister, who is also an artist, took her to see the place of her birth, Black Mountain College. The college is no longer there but they visited the place where it used to be when they having a reunion of the college alumni.
WOVEN LIGHT | Acrylic
$1,700.00
36 X 48
This painting came to me as I was halfway between sleep and waking. I had been looking at Agnes Martins' work for a few days and it felt like this was my appreciation of it.
Her visit to the Black Mountain College had a profound effect on Caitlin. It was as if the artist inside her just burst into full bloom and would no longer be put to the side. When Caitlin came home from her trip she got herself a studio and began to paint large abstract paintings unlike anything she had ever done. She discovered there is tremendous freedom in this kind of painting.
CATCHING FISH WITH A NET | Acrylic
$2,200.00
48 X 48
These colors remind me of dark waters with coy fish darting through. I added the network of lines to give the water depth and interest .
Caitlin’s favorite genre is the abstract expressionist movement. Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko, Elaine de Kooning and Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollack on and on… She feels connected to the energy of that movement and feels she is bringing it forward to the present time.
I built this painting slowly because I had not tried to create controlled chaos before this and I was a bit scared of it. I'm very happy with the result. I named it "KEEP LOOKING" as an instruction because that is when I started to appreciate it, when I kept looking at it for a long time.
KEEP LOOKING | Acrylic
$1,700.00
36 X 48
“It took me many years to call myself an artist. Even though it was a ribbon running through my entire life, I always took it for granted.”
MUSICAL NOTATION | Acrylic
$2,200.00
48 X 48
I experimented with liquid paint, splashing it and controlling where the lines went, letting it flow... I love the simplicity.
The name came from showing the painting to a musician and loving her response .
She once had a dream in which she went to visit her parents and they showed her the artwork they were currently working on. Caitlin asked them when they would send their work to the publishers. They both said they had no intention to send the work anywhere. They were content to have done the work. Caitlin was upset by this and tried to convince them that it was not enough. She wanted them to see how important it was to put it out into the world.
I love rain and the light that is created when it rains.
GARDEN GLOBES IN A RAINSTORM | Acrylic
$2,200.00
48 X 48
The artist woke up from the dream and understood the message the dream was sent to her: Even though the most important thing was to connect to the Creative and do the work that flowed like a river through her, she must also follow up by sending it out to the world of art-loving people. That is also Caitlin’s reason for connecting with TERAVARNA. She hopes they will be a great vehicle for that.
MOTH IN THE MOONLIGHT |Acrylic
$1,700.00
36 X 48
To me this is a cityscape . It has evening light coming onto darkness with a few windows lighting up. When I looked closely at it I saw a moth.
“It is very important to me that I send my artwork out into the world like the children I raised.”
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