Ciara Rafferty

San Diego native, Ciara Rafferty weaves together influence from art and social culture of the past with the oversaturated yet highly appealing framework of the modern digital age. The work alleges to depict reality, but it is a reality that is artificial and slightly skewed. Her paintings play with the increasingly present dichotomies between old and new, craft and technology, and the real and the imagined to investigate the uncanny relationship that these constructed realities produce. Her artwork resembles that of Rene Magritte and other prominent Surrealist painters of the 1920’s. Her artwork evokes a feeling of the unfamiliar or the eerie in the context of the everyday. The subject matter is lighthearted and pleasant but the more you look into the composition the viewer unlocks the truth of the scene; components seem to be missing, floating in space, there is no detectable life, and shadows are abstracted. Her paintings are infused with a subtle sense of humor amidst a nostalgic backdrop, and often depict empty gathering spaces. However, they also offer an optimistic outlook to the activities present with a deeper appreciation of their simple value.

Ciara received her BFA in Visual Arts and Art History from the University of San Diego in 2008 and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2016. She has attended residencies at the Terra Foundation for American Art in Giverny, France, Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, Dominican Republic and at the Cuttyhunk Island Residency in Cuttyhunk, MA. Recent exhibitions include No Lifeguard On Duty, Montauk Beach House, Lost Summer, Roman Fine Art, Scope New York 2019, Moniker Art Fair 2019, Philadelphia Fine Art Fair 2019, and Kitsch-In-Sync: Art and Its Opposite, Newport Beach.