A Minute With Marcelle Reinecke
Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.
I began acquiring art through some friends that worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget, for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I'd collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim. My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists that are making great (and still affordable!) work, whom you haven't heard about... yet.
Marcelle Reinecke is a wonderful painter based in Philadelphia that I came across on instagram through past guest Kirk, La Loma Projects, I believe and immediately wanted to know a bit more.
For newbie readers, I’m not into doing some long winded thing about me and what I think as I think it’s better to just hear it directly from the artist and you take what you want from it.
Thank you Marcelle for your time and thoughtful answers.
Can you tell us a bit about your style and how you got to where you currently are?
MR: I’m very interested in the history of painting. I draw inspiration from a wide variety of figurative painters. I’m currently pretty obsessed with the nocturnal scenes of French baroque painter George De La Tour and illustrations of Nancy Drew by Rudy Nappi from the 50s and 60s. Some of my favorite painters in no particular order include Nicole Eisenman, George Tooker, David Park, Kyle Staver, Fairfield Porter, Caravaggio, Alex Katz, Balthus, Phillip Guston, George Quaintance, that School of Fontainbleau painting of the girl pinching the other girl’s nipple in the bathtub...and whichever ancient Roman painted the Mystery Villa cycles! I love to collect anonymous paintings from thrift stores, and get really excited by paintings that look a bit “overworked”.
So I guess my personal style is influenced by those artists, and my unrelenting desire to paint naked ladies. My paintings usually depict women doing everyday things, and often have a queer, voyeuristic, and sometimes sinister undercurrent. My goal is always to make paintings that give the viewer something to chew on. I like to evoke a bit of nostalgia by including things like patterns, logos, cars etc.
What’s a typical day in the studio look like?
MR: I’ve got a four year old son, so every day starts with getting him off to preschool. My studio is at my house, so I’ll typically do some kind of chore, like putting on a load of laundry or loading the dishwasher before heading up to my studio. I usually have two or three paintings that I’m working on in rotation. I don’t do a whole lot of sketching before I start a new painting. But I do spend a lot of time thinking about the subject, setting, lighting, color etc. and then I will gather photo references before starting. I like to get in the weeds with a painting and I’m almost never satisfied with the first pass. I like to paint until everything clicks into the right spot, and I can’t really imagine it any other way. Sometimes I take photos of myself to work out how a figure might operate in space. I usually listen to music while I’m working and will often take a deep dive into the discography of some band from the past. This week I’ve been listening to Bee Gees and Tommy James and the Shondells.
What are your plans for 2024? Any shows?
MR: 2024 is turning out to be pretty busy. My next show opens in March at Ruffed Grouse Gallery in Narrowsburg, NY. It’s a two person show with another Philadelphia artist Julia Policastro. I’ll be in a group exhibition this spring with Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects. I’m very excited to be included in the summer group show this June at Monya Rowe Gallery. In July I’ll be doing a solo presentation of my work at NADA Foreland with Margot Samel Gallery. For the rest of the year after that I’ll be preparing for my first solo exhibition in NYC at Monya Rowe Gallery in January 2025.
Can you share some pics of your studio?
For those that may not be in a big city, what are some art related things that you recommend to our readers to learn more overall and develop their own eye/opinion, whether it’s a magazine, podcast, book, music, etc.
MR: This might sound really obvious, but google images is an incredible resource for looking at the life’s work of so many artists. For those who want to develop their own eye, the best thing you can do is find a piece of art that interests you, find other work by the same artist, and then try to figure out what work influenced that artist. Painting is a visual language that can be learned by looking at work and finding things that rhyme in other works. The more you look at paintings, the more you can distinguish one artist’s hand from another. This will give you a base of knowledge to begin discerning one thing from another. Picking up any art history 101 book from your local bookstore or library can help you to develop a basic understanding of art historical movements. All that knowledge will serve to give you a point of reference for anything else you look at.
If you weren’t painting, what do you think you would be doing for work? Are there similarities to both?
MR: I know exactly what I’d be doing for work if I wasn’t painting, because I only stopped doing that other thing very recently. I would be working in a woodshop, making furniture. For over a decade I had a career working for furniture designers such as BDDW, Thomas Moser, and others. I really love woodworking and furniture making, but I’ll never be obsessed the way I am with painting.
There are definitely principles that apply to both. Both disciplines are concerned with form, materiality, details…. Painting is just way more functional ;)
Who should we have on next?
MR: Ryan Ward @ryanwardstudio
Where can someone go to learn more / buy your work?
MR: To keep up to date you can follow me on instagram @marcelle.reinecke. I may have a painting or two available through Margot Samel Gallery or Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects. There will definitely be a handful of new works available this March when my show opens at Ruffed Grouse Gallery. So stay tuned!
Linkage Report:
Richard Prince poster : edition of 100 for 25 euros. HERE.
Artist David Horvitz hired the best in the game, Terremoto, to build a at garden of sorts and have outdoor shows. Very cool.
NY Mets are working with Joel Mesler and Rashid Johnson. Jonas Wood just did work for the LA Clippers. Is this the new thing?