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All work is ©Marcia Rackstraw and may not be copied or reproduced in any manner
without the express written permission of the artist.
Website ©2012 PlacitasArtists.com All rights reserved
©Marcia Rackstraw
Gathered
30 x 2 inches
charcoal on paper
©Marcia Rackstraw
Triptych
3 panels, 24 x 18 inches each
oil on canvas
©Marcia Rackstraw
Triptych
30 x 60 inches framed
charcoal on paper
©Marcia Rackstraw
Circle
30 x 22 inches
charcoal on paper
©Marcia Rackstraw
Edges
30 x 44 inches
oil on canvas
©Marcia Rackstraw
Shadows
22.5" x 30"
Charcoal on paper
©Marcia Rackstraw
Anthuriums
24 x 18 inches
oil on cavas
©Marcia Rackstraw
Tangle
50" x 40"
Oil on canvas
I am originally from Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area where I
studied art at The San Franciso Art Institute and The Academy of
Art. My first visit to Placitas was in 1980 and within hours of arriving
I knew this was where I wanted to live and work. My husband and I
relocated six months later and I continued my education at the
University of New Mexico earning a BFA in 1983 and a Masters of Art
in 1985. For the past thirty years I have been working in the graphic
design business, currently as the Art Director for a small publishing
company in Albuquerque as well as a book illustrator for Island Press
in Washington D.C.
My current drawings and paintings are inspired by time spent on the
island of Kauai, a landscape dramatically different from the high
desert of Placitas. With many trips to Limahuli Garden and Preserve,
a botanical park dedicated to preserving species native to that
habitat, I created a series of woodcuts of various plants and
settings. Expanding on those images I began making charcoal
drawings of the lily ponds in my Placitas yard — the plants shimmer
in the intense sunlight, shading the dark, cool spaces below the
water. The natural evolution was to color and the oil paintings of
small landscapes. These are spaces that reveal as well as conceal —
the lush, brilliantly lit vegetation above the water again shading the
quiet, dark spaces hidden below, an intertwining of two very
different environments.
Marcia Rackstraw
131 Juniper Road
Placitas, NM 87043
505.681.5241 cell 505.867.3185 home
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