Marci Washington: A Spell to Break the Spell

Rena Bransten is pleased to present a solo exhibition of recent works on paper by San Francisco based artist Marci Washington.

Embracing gothic tropes and macabre imagery, Washington evokes a sinister albeit seductive world, her characters, still lives, and landscapes rendered in rich saturated colors all cloaked in deep, velvety black.

Drawing from 19th century gothic fiction, as well as horror movies and fairy tales, Washington is interested in building a fictional narrative with connections to history as well as to the present, a process she describes as “illustrating a novel that doesn’t exist.” If it did, it would probably be a lot like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or Turn of the Screw – novels which function as social commentary as well as haunting epics of supernatural romanticism.

Washington states, “Emerging from a deep spell, the sleeper awakens. Shaking off the dirt of the grave, a new spell is cast. Reaching between two realms in places where the veil is thinnest, drawing upon an old knowledge and a power long suppressed, the dead are raised and spirit summoned. Life stirs in the darkness, plants bloom in the night, and a way forward is found.”

Marci Washington grew up in the Bay Area and received her BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. She has been the recipient of awards from both the Anderson Ranch Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation and has been awarded residencies at Yaddo and AS220. Her work has been shown nationally as well as in the UK and Japan.