“ I paint in response to ancient and rugged places that I love, interpreting them intuitively, abstractly, through memory and emotion.”
Rebecca Crowell is an American abstract artist known for the rich, complex surfaces she creates with oil paint and cold wax medium. Her work is included in hundreds of art collections–private, public, and corporate, and she exhibits regularly in fine art galleries across the country.
Crowell travels extensively for workshop teaching and artist residencies, both in the US and internationally. These experiences have significant impact on her work. The coastal areas of County Mayo, Ireland have been a particularly important location for her; she returns annually to Ballinglen Arts Foundation to teach and paint. Crowell lives and works in the dramatic, rugged landscape of northern New Mexico, another strong influence on her work.
She is widely recognized for her development of original techniques using cold wax medium, detailed in the comprehensive book, Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations. The book, which she wrote with artist and colleague Jerry McLaughlin (Squeegee Press, 2017) has become a vital resource for artists worldwide. She also shares her knowledge and experience of over thirty years as a professional artist via her podcast, blog, and Cold Wax Academy, the instructional platform she co-founded in 2020 with Jerry McLaughlin.
Artist Statement (PDF)
Resumé (PDF)
Alendo, Geo in waiting area, Wishart Building, Mayo Clinic, Eau Claire, WI
Collections
Selected Collections:
– Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art, Ballycastle, Ireland
– Lumiere Hotel, Telluride, CO
– MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
– Mayo Clinic, Eau Clare, WI
– Jayson Lander and Associates, West Hollywood, CA
– Scottsdale Waterfront Residencies, Scottsdale, AZ
– Centre D'Art I Natura, Farrera, Catalunya, Spain
– Ceridean Corporation, Minneapolis, MN
– Tria Orthopedic Clinic, Minneapolis, MN
– Robert Hill and Associates, Attorneys at Law, Minneapolis, MN
– Williams, Venker and Sanders, Attorneys at Law, St. Louis, MO
– Midwest Banking Center, St. Louis, MO
– Solomon Brothers Developers, St. Louis, MO
– Enterprise Bank, Clayton, MO
– Market & Johnson, Inc. Eau Claire WI
– University of Wisconsin
– Winona State University, Winona, MN
Review
John Seed - The Huffington Post - 2014
Rebecca Crowell's work is slow work that is the end result of many processes – including looking, seeing and feeling – all spread out over time. "Many ideas and images pass through my mind as I paint," Crowell observes: "The passage of time and aging, the accumulation – of experience, the symbolic and visual aspects of natural processes including stratification, collapse, compression: the ephemeral marks that people leave behind."
Crowell's works are abstracted from nature: they are personal responses to the visual forms, colors and atmospheres that have surrounded her in a variety of locations. There are vestiges of representation in Rebecca Crowell's work, but it is a type of representation that has been refined and re-constituted through her artistic sensibility and through her emotions.
Review
John Loughrey - IrishArt.com - 2010
Rebecca Crowell uses a kind of "memory mapping" to create her works which, although visually quite abstract, often still retain faint echoes of landscape and nature - its plant life, earth and rocks. For Crowell, rugged textures, earthy colors and a feeling of light, open spaces reveals her subliminal interest in the colours, mark-making and abstraction of at least a "memory" of landscape.
Her process of working in multiple layers, cutting, scratching and digging back brings to mind the observation by Louis le Brocquy: "The painter, like the archaeologist, is a watcher, a supervisor of accident; patiently disturbing the surface of things until significant accident becomes apparent, recognising it, conserving this as best he can while provoking further accident. In this way a whole image, a whatness, may with luck gradually emerge almost spontaneously". This is Crowell's process too.
BOOK
Cold Wax Medium: Technique, Concepts & Conversations
Rebecca Crowell and her co-author, artist Jerry McLaughlin first published their comprehensive book about the use of cold wax medium, Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations, in 2017. That first edition, now out of print, sold 15,000 copies, won two international book awards, and was groundbreaking in introducing artists worldwide to the use of cold wax medium. Now Rebecca and Jerry are launching a second, fully revised edition of the book, with an expected publication date in late 2025 or early in 2026. They have painstakingly updated every chapter, re-organizing and adding new information, and featuring the work of 90 artists, many of them new to this edition.
REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION:
“The authors’ guide is almost impossibly comprehensive...the collective experience of two veterans really shines through…”
- Kirkus Reviews
“Whether read from cover to cover, perused for its beautiful artworks, or brought into the studio as a reference, this book will inform, delight and inspire you…”
- John Seed, The Huffington Post
“This beautiful and informative book is the state-of-the-art reference source… It is a must for artists interested in working with wax as well as enjoyment for the art enthusiast.”
- Woven Tale Press, September, 2020, Rebecca Crowell and her partner Jerry McLaughlin launched Cold Wax Academy, an educational resource for artists wanting to learn or develop their abilities with oil and cold wax medium. Their updated website offers information about the medium, registration pages for their widely acclaimed membership program, and specially designed tools and their award-winning book for purchase.
EDUCATION
COLD WAX ACADEMY
In September, 2020, Rebecca Crowell and her partner Jerry McLaughlin launched Cold Wax Academy, an educational resource for artists wanting to learn or develop their abilities with oil and cold wax medium. Please visit www.coldwaxacademy to learn about the medium, membership program, and specially designed tools for purchase. You will also be able to purchase the new, second edition of Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations when it becomes available.
Cold Wax Academy's membership program is a structured online course with artists participating from around the world. Membership provides access to over 150 online recordings, a full-length workshop video, other recorded lessons, and monthly live sessions for Q & A with Jerry and Rebecca. You can join any time and work at your own pace. A free Facebook page is also available for learning opportunities and connections with other artists using cold wax medium, and free lessons on a range of topics are available on the Ask Jerry and Rebecca YouTube channel.
Please visit the Cold Wax Academy website for more information.
Video
Cold Wax Medium: A Video Workshop
Over two years in the making, this professionally produced video covers the techniques, demonstrations, and topics presented during one of the five-day cold wax workshops taught by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin. PLEASE NOTE: The video is only available via steaming access to Full Members of Cold Wax Academy and to those who sign up for 6 weeks of access at the Video Membership level.
Video
Artist Spotlight — Rebecca Crowell
New Mexico artist Rebecca Crowell discusses her solo exhibition, "Place to Place."
VIDEO
Rebecca Crowell - Friday Feature Artist
PODCAST
An Interview with Rebecca Crowell
Rebecca Crowell creates luscious abstract paintings which are inspired by her travels and memories of places. In this episode, Rebecca and I talk about working with cold wax, and how playing with the medium encouraged her to switch from representational to abstract painting. We also discuss the discomfort artists feel when they transition from a style they are known for into something completely new. We dig a little into her process of both a painting and a body of work she might create after experiencing a place through her travels. Because I know artists do have lives outside of the studio, I asked Rebecca to share what it was like when she and her husband started their family. She talks candidly about her challenges with raising her sons while keeping up with her painting. I really appreciate Rebecca’s curiosity and love of creating. Although she might be most known for her cold wax paintings, she also makes mono-prints and is learning about carborundum printing, a technique I was unfamiliar with so I asked her all about it.
— The Savvy Painter Podcast with Antrese Wood