Rachel Constantine

Constantine is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, five awards from the Woodmere Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and one from the Allied Artists of America in NYC. Her work has been exhibited in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia City Hall, the National Arts League in New York City, and the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, PA. Three of her paintings were featured in Alla Prima: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting, published in 2009 by Watson-Guptil, NY. Her painting "Self Portrait with a Man" was purchased by The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine arts for their permanent collection in December 2018.

In 2006, Constantine was invited to exhibit in Artworks Gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the local complement to the Museum's exhibition: Wyeth: Memory and Magic. Her work can be found in The Vivian O. and Meyer P. Potamkin Collection in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and is featured in the new hard-cover illustrated book Alla Prima: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting written by Al Gury, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy's painting department.

In her Monument (2006), Constantine explores themes that are at once personal and timeless. The composition alludes both to the symbolic nature morte of the Baroque era and to the still lifes of Chardin. Her own sensibility adds poetry as well as an edge of modern anxiety and sadness.

In her Swan Pond (2002), the amount of thinner, oil, and so forth added to the paint has a profound effect on the quality of the brush calligraphy and the details in a painting. Broad, scumbled masses provide the setting for paint that has varying degrees of oil added to it. The gazebo, water reflection, and swans achieve their clarity because they are rendered with brushstrokes that are more thickly loaded with paint and also because that paint has a small amount of oil added. This follows the "lean to fat" concept of layering. The "fatter" final, detail touches sit on top with clarity due to the added oil, which created a sharper edge over the less oily paint beneath.

Rachel Constantine (born 1973) is a Philadelphia-based realist / impressionist painter. Her figurative work serves as a metaphor for exploring her life experience, and she uses people, places, and objects closest to her to convey ongoing themes.

Rachel Constantine was born in Philadelphia in 1973. In 2003, she received a certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she graduated with honors. Since then, she has participated in almost 50 exhibitions, won five awards from the Woodmere Art Museum in Pennsylvania, a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, eleven awards from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and another from Allied Artists for America in New York City.