REBECCA CROWELL is a graduate of Arizona State University, where she was awarded her M.F.A. in 1985. She received a B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. She lives and has her studio in a rural area of Wisconsin.

CROWELL was a resident artist at the Center for Art and Nature in the Catalan Mountains of Spain in September, 2001. In addition, she has been the recipient of a Travel Grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board and was awarded a month long residency in Catalonia, Spain in 2008.

REBECCA CROWELL’S latest work is reflective of her month long artist residency she took in the tiny, ancient stone village of Catalonia, Spain. She was inspired by aspects of the environment that showed the long human habitation of the area —old walls of buildings, eroded paths that appear and disappear in the mountains, remote little graveyards, and ruins of houses and barns.

CROWELL’S experiences in spain have lead her towards a more general expression of aging in her work, the passing of time, and the accumulation of memories and history. She is drawn to the symbolic and visual aspects of natural processes like stratification, collapse, compression, burial. Her interstes also lie in the ephemeral marks that people leave behind- traces of handwriting, doodles and quick sketches.

CROWELL'S working method is organic in nature — the final image grows through layers of paint and cold wax, subtle color shifts, and textures applied with brushes, rollers, rags and sticks. She builds up layers of paint, and scrapes, gouges and dissolves selected areas so underlying layers emerge. Most of CROWELL’S paintings are made of individually painted panels which are permanently mounted together in various configurations. The divisions between panels provide tension and structure to what is otherwise flowing, organic imagery.