Rebecca B. Morton

Artist Statement

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”  booms the voice in the last Technicolor act of The Wizard of Oz.  But everybody knows that if there’s a curtain, whatever’s behind it is all a person can think about.  The idea of “behind” the curtain requires that the curtain itself be apparent.  And so I’m always seeking ways both to show the curtain, and to make looking through it worth a person’s while.

I have been occupied with the notion of translucency since I learned the word at eight or nine.  Not quite clear:  The most common state of most affairs when it comes to the weather, to relationships, to memory, to the names of colors.  I am drawn to images that point this up in material and narrative ways.  I have always drawn in layers, printed in layers, thought in layers.  And in order to illustrate the fact of the layers, I depend upon transparent and translucent materials—organza, sheer Asian papers, vellum,  gobs and gobs of Charbonnel Transparent Lake ink.