Artists-SALON III-RACHEL DOLMATCH

Attending and contributing to her first Salon Nouveau event on May 29th, Rachel Dolmatch greatly enhanced our third installment with her enthusiastic discussion of the exhibited work, as well as with her own sculptural constructions. For her featured work, Ms. Dolmatch drew on her widely varied experiences and education. Rachel has studied painting and printmaking at the Corcoran School of Art in D.C. (BFA 1992), woodworking at Watertown’s North Bennett Street School, professional floral design at the Cass School of Floral Design, and historic preservation studies at the Harvard Landscape Institute. In addition, Ms. Dolmatch has been working in construction fields for more than 15 years. These myriad experiences, her painting skills, and her love for building things were all apparent in her exhibited work--five dichotomous pieces that are simultaneously natural and man-made, concurrently sturdy and delicate.
About her work, the artist says the following:

“I have been attracted to shiny and corrupted objects as long as i can remember. I collected rusty scrap metal in college. I picked up solder in San Francisco when I lived there...I have collected hardware, cut nails, scrap wallpaper,building detritus, etc. I had a collection of boxes when i was a little girl and still love them today. I fill them with wheat pennies, tiny seashells, dried rose petals and bird bones. My boxes stem from my life, I guess. The only difference from what you would see in my home and them is that when I make one, there tends to be a theme- a narrative, pun or vingnette- that is intentional and not random, like life tends to be."