The Blue of Distance, Madeline Rupard / Drew Rane, Material Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah, September – November 2025

For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.

—Rebecca Solnit, The Blue of Distance

Blue is the only color in the English language that is also a feeling. “I’m feeling blue,” a loved one says, and suddenly the atmosphere changes: it is time to listen. Blue is twilight, water, sky; it is distance and atmosphere, the space between here and there. It is memory and it is longing.

One of the earliest blues remembered is a childhood sky: deep and dark in a Maryland parking lot, on a sleepy morning with a father. The color lingers more vividly than the scene. Blue becomes not just pigment but sensation — time made visible, an echo of feeling.

In the work of Drew Rane, veils of blue overtake the painted surface. Rather than receding into distance, this blue overcomes and transforms the field of view. From an aerial vantage, his canvases consider strange geographies from above, a perspective only accessible to humankind in the last century through flight.

In contrast, Madeline Rupard’s paintings hold blue as something always just out of reach: in clouds, mountains, and horizons where desire dwells. Her paintings ground themselves in the passing landscapes of daily life — roads, cars, suburban skies — painted with loose washes and indulgent color. These are romantic visions of the mundane, suburban scenes glimpsed from the passenger seat, where the horizon keeps receding.

Where Rane’s works look down from a god’s-eye view, Rupard’s are resolutely earthbound. One finds transcendence in atmosphere; the other in the immediacy of everyday passages. Together, they paint two visions of longing: the blue that covers, and the blue that distances.

Blue is memory, blue is desire, blue is where you are not — and where you can never go.

Chiesa Delle Madonna Delle Lacrime, Carrara, Italy, 20 August – 21 September 2022

Alex and Drew Rane are exhibiting together for the first time showcasing their new work developed in Carrara. The exhibition explores the conditions of faith and spirituality, drawing on the religious architecture in which the exhibition is set and the personal history of religion in which both artists were raised. “The disused church setting gave us a unique starting point for the work….” said Drew Rane.

“It has been really interesting working alongside my brother in Carrara. I have been based here for several years and he is based in New York. I’ve been working with sculpture and Drew is a painter, so we we really curious to see how we could respond to and experiment with material together. From the outset, the collaborative process has been really generative for both of us…..” said Alex Rane.

The resulting sculptures by Alex Rane were developed in plaster and wax and form part of a series titled Spiriti. “Bits of my unconscious are embedded in the cracks and crevasses and reveal themselves in peculiar ways – conveying ideas, feeling and the indefinable in ways that can’t be said in any other way.”

The paintings made by Drew Rane are part of an on going series about veils, they are created from plastic, paint and marble dust. Eschewing traditional canvas in favor of translucent plastic these paintings act as a veil to a possibly more spiritual dimension. The marble dust adhered to the plastic acts as an impediment to the translucency of the plastic grounding it to a more earthly plane. Together, with the sculptures, the visitors will sense an uneasy calm.

This is new work being exhibited for the first time publicly and is a departure from the typical styles and materials of both artists. The monochromatic works feed off each other as the warm, soft beeswax melts around the haunting, gaunt figures. The marble dust paintings at once envelop the viewer and allow them to pass through, creating a perfect abstract compliment to the figurative sculptures.

Dates:
August 20th – September 4th
Private View 20 August 19.00-22.00 CET

Address:
Via Carriona, 44, 54033 Carrara MS, Italy

Fellowship of PAFA Show at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, November 3 to 27, 2021

The Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is one of the oldest Alumni art nonprofit organizations in America and staffed solely by volunteers, which speaks of the impressive loyalty and dedi- cation of our board and artists.

127 South 16th Street Philadelphia PA

November 3 to 27, 2021

www.grossmccleaf.com 215.665.8138

Gallery 3E – On-line September 22 – November 30, 2020

For the inaugural exhibition of Gallery 3E Drew Rane crafted a digital space using the artsteps platform. Mimicking the layout of him apartment/studio during the early months of the pandemic he set up a digital gallery. He exhibited two differing styles of work, abstract photographic images using analogue processes in a darkroom, and a series of oil paintings that reference the landscape as viewed from an airplane window.

September 22 – November 30, 2020

www.gallery3e.com