Hello my lovelies!
It's finally time to reveal the works for "Stranger Than Earth"!
There are so many vivid experiences that informed these pieces that I'm breaking the newsletter into a few installments! The work is available now through Corey Helford Gallery, please contact them directly if you're interested in any works!
About this Show:
"Stranger Than Earth is a requiem to an Earth transformed by climate change; there is no going back to the world we used to know, but perhaps we can create a new world full of alien beauty. The explorers depicted in these paintings are a reflection of their environment, both unknowable and also entering into unknown spaces. In her delicate mixed media paintings, Redd combines the romanticism of high-fashion with a science fiction edge. Atoms are dancing, hearts are breaking, and we dissolve into endless fields of flowers."
Part I - The Tulips
"The Butterfly Catcher" 30"x40" Oil and Mixed Media on Lasercut Acrylic
"The Butterfly Catcher" - detail
This series began in the Skagit Valley Tulip fields. These are the largest fields outside of Holland, yet somehow in all my time in Seattle I'd never visited them. Thinking about including backgrounds in my paintings, the idea of a landscape drenched in color was incredibly appealing. I spent several days test-shooting, and then headed up with my longtime collaborator Fox Chalker for the first full outdoor photoshoot.
Behind the scenes during my shoot with Fox
Being immersed in that much color felt intoxicating! That spring day was particularly stunning, and after trying various poses and fields, the sky treated us to a glimmering cotton candy sunset. The whole experience was a brief and beautiful perfect moment. As 2016 progressed it became a very difficult time for me personally, but something about beginning this series from a place of hope, experimentation & color helped me hold on to some of the light through the dark winter.
"Bloom" 18"x24" Oil and Mixed Media on Lasercut Acrylic
Tulips have always fascinated me, partly because of the 17th Century Dutch Tulip Mania. The mania was the first speculative bubble, with investors buying single Tulip bulbs for many times the annual salary of the average worker at the time. When the prized color variations of the flowers turned out to be caused by virus (making them unable to reproduce), the market collapsed. Something as delicate and beautiful as a Tulip creating such chaos in society is a stark lesson that it's so easy for us to lose sight of a trend going too far.
"Superbloom" 14"x18" Oil and Mixed Media on Lasercut Acrylic
I returned to the tulip fields this year to create new references for the "stillscapes" featuring floating flower orbs. This spring was a much harsher one, and the fields were moody, under windswept storm-clouds. I had imagined them to always feel as idyllic as they did last year; it was yet another reminder that there is no returning to a moment or a place, everything is transient. But in the end, this difference made for dramatic imagery as well, and helped to connect these pieces to the effects of climate change the rest of that the series focuses on.
"Reality Storm" 13"x16" Oil and Mixed Media on Lasercut Acrylic
"Colorless Atoms" 13"x16" Oil and Mixed Media on Lasercut Acrylic
"Flowers come Pleading for the Sun" 11"x14" framed in 12"x16" with lasercut matte
In the next day or two, I'll be telling you more about Iceland, near death frost-bite experiences, and how the rest of this series evolved! The show is beginning to get some awesome press too, like this interview with The Lia Project!
The opening is this weekend, Saturday July 15th in Los Angeles at
Corey Helford Gallery
571 S Anderson St, Los Angeles, CA 90033
(310) 287-2340
If you are in Southern California, please join me for an incredible night of art and magic! Many of my models will be in attendance, wearing incredible pieces by designer Cryptic Nine, and there are 2 other shows opening in Gallery 1 and 2 as well!
