Rebecca Leveille is a contemporary artist working in a figurative mode. Freely mining both art historical sources and contemporary painting she cites influences ranging from Titian to Walter Robinson, from Fragonard to Kara Walker. Her practice involves a translation of pictorial practices and inner mythologies through her distinctive ability to compose lyrically gestured figures largely from imagination. Leveille’s facility with the figure and drawing was the center of her successes as an illustrator in the 1990’s until 2011 (working under the name Rebecca Guay). She was a celebrated figure in comics and fantasy publishing, working closely with the iconic Denis Kitchen as her agent (Kitchen Sink Press) for a number of years, until 2011 at which time she left commercial work to pursue painting.
Breaking out of the prescriptive narrative mode of illustration, her relationship to language persists yet the narrative potentials in her current work are subverted by her determination to create that which is poetic rather than literal. These personally driven explorations delve into sensuality, the female gaze, media imagery, and Art World social phenomena. She often leans into and appropriates her past identity as a creator of pop culture as a tool to examine the myth and influence of culture within her current work. A constant subtext of Leveille’s art is her relationship to materials. Thick paint forms the confident wide lines of the drawing in her oils. Washes drift below impastos. Pencil and graphite powder bear force of mark and streak. The assertion of materials never overwhelms the creation of pictures yet it forms an ever-present and voluptuous tactility with meanings of its own. Leveille’s art has garnered words of praise from Jerry Saltz, Walter Robinson, and Peter Frank. She has been a guest artist/speaker at Rhode Island School of Design, University of Massachusetts, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Fordham University, a guest instructor at Pratt Institute, and a guest artist by invitation to shows and events in Melbourne Australia, Paris, Nagoya and Osaka (Japan), Valencia, San Fernando, and Torrelavega (Spain). Her work has been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine, American Art Collector, and Hi Fructose among many other publications and is collected internationally.
In 2018 she was featured in solo show, “NO END TO LOVE” at The Untitled Space. Her work has additionally been featured in The Untitled Space group shows “UPRISE / ANGRY WOMEN”, “SHE INSPIRES” as well as "EDEN" (2019) and "HOTEL XX" (2018) presented at SPRING/BREAK Art Show. She has been featured at Sotheby’s New York for the annual “Take Home A Nude” exhibit and auction presented by The New York Academy of Art (2017-2019), The Allentown Museum of Art, PA, Delaware Art Museum, DE, MA, Jonathan Levine Gallery, NY, Abend Gallery, CO, the Corey Helford Gallery, LA, The Center for Contemporary Art, Sante Fe, NM, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, NY, and the Michelson Gallery, MA. She was a finalist for the 2019 Bennet Prize and will have a number of works touring through 2021 with the Muskegon Museum. Rebecca currently lives and works in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Learn more about her artwork and exhibitions on our website. Visit her profile on Artsy for additional artworks for sale by The Untitled Space.
