About Rae
Rather than using precisely defined brushstrokes in her pieces, painter Rae Broyles largely uses washes of color to achieve the images she sees in her mind’s eye, allowing her concept to take shape with very little guidance from her hand to create pieces evocative of the emotion she herself experiences and visually connect others with everything that inspires her passion. Every piece Rae creates speaks of a time in her life—what she sees in the world around her, what events are taking place.
There’s a freedom in her work, freedom of movement and depth and emotion, unapologetic for whatever it may elicit of its viewer. And it’s that freedom to explore pain, happiness, wonder, anger—experience them by turns in every piece and every color and texture and stroke—that has drawn her audience and made her work so incredibly relevant.
Having grown up in an artistic, unconventional household in Chicago, Rae’s love of art and painting developed from an early age, fully taking shape as she grew into adulthood and studied at some of the most known art schools in the nation. No amount of study or training, however, could achieve what sheer talent and passion naturally gave her; and during the many years that Rae worked in the commercial art world, she came to realize that her art could not find fulfillment unless she allowed herself to let go and just create.
“It’s important to me that the energy that I feel while I create art is evident in the final piece,” Rae says. “My process and materials are my motivation; but I also succumb to the thought that I’m only a vessel through which creativity flows, telegraphing images that exist in the universe as well as those that have yet to be physically realized.”
She uses her deft ability to combine mediums, communicating her vision through acrylics and oils, torched wax, fabrics, and even videography. The combinations are nothing, if not powerful; and somehow, she captures the spirit of her subject and translates it all in the visual space allowed by her canvas, never confining the energy into the harsh restrictions of a clear outline.
Little wonder, then, that many of her pieces seem so at home in the sea; having spent much time in her childhood at the beach, her later discovery of Scenic 30A enchanted her and welcomed her as one of its own. Now a part time resident, Rae’s work has become a beloved part of the creative soul at 30A, a little taste of beauty and imagination that fits perfectly with the very vision at the heart of the community.
