Raychael Stine – an associate professor of painting and drawing at The University of New Mexico – has spent most of her life exclusively painting dogs.
This past week, Stine was chosen to participate with 50 other artists in a show titled “The Flower Show,” hosted at La Louver – an art gallery in Los Angeles.
The show will feature artists that incorporate flower imagery within their work. Stine’s two paintings being showcased are titled, “Middle Lover 3” and “Ophelia 3.”
Her work plays with light, color and space while incorporating what she calls her “secret dogs,” which are portraits that serve as the basis of her painting that she then makes abstract.
“They're sort of these secret, cryptic dog portraits that I then really obfuscate or make really unclear and turn into these landscape-inspired abstractions with different levels of legibility and readability … There's moments of a little dog's nose, teardrop or raindrop where a flower appears to be floating on top of the canvas,” Stine said.
Stine has always wanted to repeatedly paint her dog, but said that she has experienced significant pushback.
“I had mentors when I was a student in my twenties tell me, ‘you would really be taken seriously as a painter if you stopped painting your dog, especially as a woman.’ … I was actually really offended by (someone telling) me that I could be taken seriously only if I stopped doing what I was deeply compelled to do,” Stine said.
Her academic experience has influenced how she wants to approach teaching, or how not to teach, Stine said.
“As a professor, my greatest goal is not to tell students ‘what not to do’, like my experience was, but instead to help students really hone in – figure out what they are meant to do,” Stine said.
When Stine paints dogs she said it goes back to her desire to paint her evolving understanding of the world.
“I wanted to paint my dogs because it was in that relationship that I learned how to be an empathetic human and how to navigate the world through my senses, not through intellectualizing things,” Stine said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Emma Gray, the owner of Five Car Garage – a small art gallery in Santa Monica, California – recommended Stine for The Flower Show. Her gallery often shows work from young, new and female artists, but she is most focused on producing impressive technical work that she has never seen before. Stine’s work fits that description, Gray said.
“I like how she's sort of balancing techniques,” Gray said. “She brings differing brush strokes – different energies to the strokes. The colors are always really good. She gets this diffused light in the back. … My two kids and all of their college friends – she's their favorite painter (in the gallery) by far.”
Knowing about Stine’s “secret dogs” within her paintings can help create context behind the piece, Gray said – demonstrating Stine’s artistic representations of empathy. However, knowing about the dogs is not needed to appreciate her work.
“The secret dogs are wonderful,” Gray said. “The truth is, I've sold many of the paintings and people didn't even realize there were secret dogs. It doesn't matter because you can just look at them as pure abstraction or you can look at them, knowing.”
Stine moved to New Mexico in 2013, but wanted to move to the desert since 2003 after participating in a show in Marfa, Texas. The landscape and atmosphere of New Mexico, Stine Said, has changed her approach to art.
“I love it here and it has really inspired my work and (has) deeply affected what I do. … It's more exploring what (you are) – physically and sensually experiencing – and being in the moment,” Stine said.
Addison Key is the culture editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @addisonkey11
Addison Key is a senior reporter at the Daily Lobo and served as the Summer 2023 culture editor. She can be reached on Twitter @addisonkey11.
