Rebecca Gilbert
Rebecca Gilbert is a Philadelphia-based artist whose work exemplifies a dedication to traditional printmaking processes, while her innovation in executing these processes in combination with cut paper and assemblage push the boundaries of what a print can be. Her highly detailed work allows her to explore our perceptions of both space and beauty. It also recognizes her very human, primal instincts.
Her work is a representation of the act of searching for, and of our ability to recognize when one has found, something of “value.” She interprets these ideas in woodcut, wood engraving, and etching using natural imagery and pattern, as those processes allow the integration of a high level of detail and the ability to work both very large and very small simultaneously.
Rebecca currently serves on the board of The Wood Engravers’ Network and is represented by The Print Center Gallery Store. She lives and works in South Philadelphia and teaches at University of the Arts where she is also the coordinator of the Expanded Drawing and Printmaking concentration within the School of Art. Her prints are in numerous public and private collections, and have been exhibited regionally, including a solo Wind Challenge exhibition at Fleisher Art Memorial; nationally, including at the International Print Center New York; and abroad, including at the Palacio Huerto Ruano, Lorca, Spain.
Among Rebecca’s most recent awards are an Independence Foundation Fellowship and a Winterthur Artist/Maker Fellowship. These supported the research and creation of her recent body of work, Visions of Plenty: Observation, Perception, Illusion, and Reverie. Inspired by historic moveable book structures and optical devices, the work invites viewers to explore optics, perception and the act of seeing by transforming intricately detailed prints into dimensional works on paper.