Blake Rayne

For Blake Rayne, the act of painting includes folding, sewing, cutting, and draping his materials—and he considers the final work secondary to the process of making it. An overarching theme in Rayne’s projects is an emphasis on the labor that creativity entails. For this reason, his paintings are often displayed alongside their packing crates, which serve as reminders of the physical action required to deliver a finished work to an audience. Rayne, who insists that his pieces require “no fancy footwork,” has a wry sense of humor. Puns abound in his paintings: in his “Cover Letter” series (2010), a piece of felt in the shape of a lowercase “a” hangs over a stretched canvas. A 2011 show titled “Folder & Application” contained works with visible folds and self-fashioned tools for applying pigment.

Rayne has had numerous solo exhibitions internationally, at galleries and museums including Galeria Múrias Centeno in Lisbon, Portugal; Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas; Campoli Presti in Paris, France; Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York; Campoli Presti in London; Mendes Wood in São Paolo, Brazil; 1301PE in Los Angeles; Capitain Petzel Gallery in Berlin, Germany; Johnen + Schöttle in Cologne, Germany; Greene Naftali Gallery in New York; and has participated in a number of group shows around the world. In 2010 he recieved a Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, and in 2001 he was granted the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rayne's work has been featured in Artforum, The New Yorker, Art in America, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Time Out New York, New York Magazine, and Frieze. He lives and works in New York. 

Courtesy of SculptureCenter