Rebecca Brodskis: Echoes of Now

Groups of women embrace and encircle one another, their limbs creating balletic shapes against softly bruising backgrounds. Echoes of Now, a solo exhibition by Rebecca Brodskis at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, is an exploration of the essence of love and touch as an universal language.

 

While Brodskis’ subjects are typically drawn from her imagination, these latest paintings are based on photographs of dancers who performed at the Bastille Design Center in Paris on the occasion of her collaborative exhibition with dancer Lilach Pnina Livne. In part they are an attempt to reconnect and commemorate that moment, which Brodskis cites as a turning point in her practice, but they also transcend the performance to take on a life of their own. As with all of Brodskis’ portraits, the figures are not so much individuals as archetypes, all vaguely reminiscent of one another so that they could be siblings or multiple versions of one self. The focus is more on body language and shape, the points at which they meet and the spaces between them. In one painting, the dancers appear languidly lying back on a blue surface, their legs kicked up into the air, heels touching. In another, one woman bends backwards over another dancer’s back, her feet lifting off the ground, her chin tilted in full surrender, their palms gently clasped.

 

Brodskis has previously been known for her flat graphical style, but in these works, we see a progression towards a more layered approach. The backdrops are no longer a single block colour, but a shifting plane of different hues that seems to capture a sense of movement, warmth and energy between the dancers. Take, for instance, the painting in which four dancers are positioned in a loosely circular shape. Their hands are suspended, reaching to touch each other’s faces. We understand this to be a moment already passed: the figures are frozen in time, their ashen skin tone adding a spectral quality, as if they are slowly fading from existence. At the same time, the connections they made, the places where their bodies moved and came together, linger through visible brushstrokes that appear almost like heat waves or air currents in the golden background, softening the figures’ silhouettes and blurring the boundaries between past, present and future.

 

‘When we touch someone or we are touched, it is a point of connection that lasts well past the end of the action. It has an impact on how we feel and behave,’ says Brodskis. ‘As children we are more connected to our emotions, we’re not afraid to touch or to express love, but as adults we’re generally more inhibited and disconnected from ourselves and others.’ This is particularly the case in contemporary society where many of our relationships are formed and maintained through screens. In two paintings in this series the figure is depicted looking lovingly up into a phone. It’s unclear exactly what the interaction is here: is she calling a loved one? Or gazing into her own image? Either way, the phone is a barrier, between the figure and the physical world, and a symbol of absence and longing.

 

However, touch, in these paintings, is not only about a  physical action or presence, but also an emotional openness and vulnerability. We see this most clearly in the painting where a woman sits with her eyes closed and head resting against the chest of the woman behind her. It is a pose reminiscent of a mother and child. At the same time, it is a portrait of respect and reciprocity: the figures seem to be drawing strength and comfort from each other’s tenderness. Their arms are loosely intertwined and each woman has one palm resting on her own head.

 

The immortalisation of these scenes through paint acknowledges the profound impact that social connections have on not just our close relationships, but with all people. They are everyday moments that reverberate continuously through time and shape the world around us.