Rachel Espenlaub - Dream Scream

Dream Scream is a collection of oil paintings based on kaleidoscoped images of ice cream. The idea for this series developed from my desire to experiment and merge my two different painting pursuits: hard-edge geometric abstraction and impressionistic photorealism.

I wanted to incorporate pattern and repetition like I do in my geometric abstract paintings, but also portray the texture of a real object. 

I decided to use ice cream as my reference because, well…I love ice cream! It’s comforting, it’s whimsical, it’s satisfying, indulgent, and reminiscent of childhood. 

The organic, varied appearance of ice cream lends well to keeping my painting abstract, without overpowering the composition with the instant readability of what the painting actually is. 

When I started experimenting with my digital reference images, I first put scoops of ice cream on flat-color backgrounds and did a single vertical mirroring. 

Somehow, the result was… horrifying. The bilateral symmetry tricked the brain into seeing strange, scary creatures. The rippled ice cream texture looked like bony, crustacean-like monsters. 

To avoid this strangeness and get back to a more whimsical feel, I used both vertical and horizontal mirroring, along with some duplication, rotation, and scaling. 

The rhythmic patterns were mesmerizing. It is so interesting how quickly the brain does not recognize the texture as ice cream when manipulated like this.  

What is especially fun for me as the artist is hearing the different things everyone sees when they look at these paintings. I’d love to hear what you see!