Rebecca Moses’ Week in Southampton

by · WWD
From the Rebecca Moses portrait series "I Think You Are Beautiful When You Are Bored"Courtesy photo

CREATIVITY IN MOTION: Rebecca Moses will be simultaneously painting and interacting with the public at the Southampton Arts Center on Long Island.

As the center’s new artist-in-residence for the week of Aug. 24 to 31, Moses will, through a format that’s part exhibition, part working studio, part performance, and part conversation, invite the public inside the normally private space to see her finished works and experience creativity in motion.

“This is going to be working on my experimental paintings, and revealing 11 new paintings and some other works on paper. People can come in, go out, whatever they like, and there will be dialogue. I’m a very open person, and I like talking to people, if they are mannered and polite. People want to see the intimacy in live painting and not every artist is willing to do that, but I’m OK with it,” Moses said.

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She’s done it twice before, at the Ralph Pucci International gallery in Los Angeles, and at the Nilufar Gallery in Milan. The Milan experience, she said, was “a marathon. I did 100 portraits in two days. Each portrait was 10 minutes. People just went crazy.” Moses typically paints alone in her New York City studio.

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Moses’ 11 new portraits, under the title “I Think You Are Beautiful When You Are Bored,” depict women dressed predominantly in black, with jewelry, eyewear, cigarettes, gestures and glances, so each reveals a distinctive attitude, be it defiant, elegant, amused, detached, provocative, mysterious or bored. Asked how she came up with such a curious name for the portraits, Moses said, “It’s an attitude. It’s about not having to perform for people. When women get dressed, it doesn’t have to be a performance. It’s about just being you, and saying, ‘I’m not going to make a big deal out of this.’”

Moses’ week at the Southampton Arts Center, 25 Jobs Lane, will include a conversation Aug. 26 between her, her longtime gallerist Ralph Pucci, and Stefano Tonchi, Palmer Magazine editorial director, covering “the intersection of art, fashion, design, storytelling, and a creative life continually moving forward.”

Rebecca Moses at a Fragrance Foundation party this year.Lexie Moreland/WWD

Moses, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, worked for Pierre Cardin, launched a namesake label, and in 1991 became head designer of luxury brand Genny. Her fashion illustrations have been commissioned by Italian Vogue, Vogue Japan, Marie Claire Italia, MAC Cosmetics, Vera Wang, and others. Moses has exhibited in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Milan, and Tokyo.