The Blue of Distance — Madeline Rupard & Drew Rane

For The Blue of Distance, we take the color blue as both material and metaphor, a shared language through which we each approach the landscape in distinct yet resonant ways. For centuries, artists have used blue to signal distance, to gesture toward what lies just beyond reach. In our work, we extend this tradition, turning to blue as a way of exploring memory, perception, and the spaces that exist between presence and absence.

In shaping this exhibition, we were drawn to Rebecca Solnit’s reflection on “the blue at the far edge of what can be seen,” a color bound up with longing, solitude, and desire. Madeline traces the American landscape through the lens of motion—skies glimpsed in passing, where the suburban collides with the sublime and becomes a repository of memory. Drew layers paint and image to suspend clarity, cultivating moments of ambiguity and reflection. Together, our work embraces the paradox of blue itself—intimate yet unreachable, rooted in the here-and-now yet always pointing toward the horizon. The Blue of Distance is, for us, a meditation on longing and perception, where distance becomes not just a measure of space, but a condition of seeing and feeling.

Madeline Rupard is an artist and educator happily torn between the East Coast and American West. She was born in Provo, Utah, raised in Maryland and Georgia, and moved back recently to Utah from New York, her home of five years. She received an MFA in Painting ('19) from Pratt Institute and a BFA in Studio Art ('16) from BYU, where she returned as an Assistant Professor of painting in 2024. She has attended the Vermont Studio Center Residency as well as the Ora Lerman Soaring Gardens Residency in Pennsylvania. Last year she published her first book consisting of paintings and text “Passages” with Slow Worm Press and participated in the I Never Read Art Book Fair, Art Basel 2025. Her work has also appeared in Booooooom, New American Paintings, and at Lorin Gallery in Los Angeles, Black Paper Gallery in Somerset, UK, and Room 57 Gallery in New York. 

Madeline Rupard’s paintings consider the American landscape as one who has moved through it frequently and traveled across long distances. A sense of wonder and solitary, transient observation is instilled in her pictures--you are not here to stay, but always passing through. She paints to describe contradictions: the suburban and the sublime, the sacred and the mundane, and the ancient and man-made running up against each other. Her paintings are also about surfaces, clouds, and skies, and the potential of color to evoke memory and emotion. Art, to her, is a reconciliation between the romantic and the realist.

Drew Rane (b. 1991, Connecticut) is a New York City–based artist working primarily in painting and photography. He earned a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2016. Rane’s work explores the tension between clarity and obscurity, often using layered materials and selective focus to obscure parts of the image and introduce ambiguity.

Rooted in the concept of separation, his practice reflects a sustained interest in the spaces between what is seen and what is hidden. His images invite a visual slowing-down, encouraging reflection and a meditative mode of looking.

Rane has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Berlin, Carrara (Italy), and Utah.

I aim to achieve clarity in response a cluttered state of mind, both for myself and the viewer. Veils, transparent objects, and things that divide and obscure hold great significance for me. I’m particularly drawn to the idea of separation, a threshold to pass through, and the desire that arises when a full image isn’t immediately given.

I’ve continually come back to the vantage point of an airplane window and I often think about it in terms of a new landscape. This godlike perspective brings me back to the idea of separation. Being obscured and removed from earth while looking back should bring clarity but the hum of the airplane only clouds the mind.

In my work I block out or obscure part or all of an image, object or photograph, creating spaces of uncertainty in the image where it can’t be viewed in its entirety. I often use veils that are created by drawing, painting, or shifting the focus. My work consists of both paintings and photographs, and I often blur the line between the two or combine them, considering photography to be a form of painting.

Madeline Rupard

madelinerupard.com

Instagram: @madelinerupard

Drew Rane

drewrane.com

Instagram: @drewrane