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Channeling Joan Fontaine

In 1940 Alfred Hitchcock made Rebecca, a film based on a novel of the same name by the British writer Daphne du Maurier. It stars Laurence Olivier as the brooding widower Maxim de Winter, and the young Joan Fontaine as his naive and vulnerable second wife. Ill-suited to her role in high society, the new Mrs. de Winter (whose first name is never revealed), is subjected to the manipulative housekeeper’s obsession with the beautiful, sophisticated first wife, Rebecca. Themes of jealousy, power, and competition are central to the story.

Rebecca was one of my mother’s favorite movies. She saw it for the first time when she was nine years old and introduced it to me many years later, when I was a similar age.

In this new body of work, I am attempting to visualize competitiveness, interdependence, and inadequacy through a series of paintings. A short video provides a clue to understanding the psychological intentions invested in the simple, abstracted forms.