Road Agent is very pleased to announce the opening of Raychael Stine’s first solo painting exhibition, Dogs, Rats and Weasels.

Stine combines genres and languages of painting easily, using elements of expressionism and realism in a direct, non-quotational manner. Through it we encounter a painter instinctively gifted in both method and composition, and we can luxuriate in Stine’s skill even as we move beyond it to explore her long-developing, allegorical narrative.

She’s painting an oft-grim tale, which breaks down by species and sets up the narrative:

Big dogs, usually Weimaraners, are sentinels: noble and protective, though often falling to illness or attack or some mysterious dark ending, even death.

Smaller dogs, the dachshund, are the primary protagonists on this life’s journey, naturally a victim of its own shape—truncated legs, compromised spine, bulging eyes. She (the dachshund) struggles and we root for her.

Rats and mice are companions, attendants. They are the Greek chorus of the tale.
Weasels (also stoats—and in previous paintings, foxes) are sinister, the bad guys, the interlopers—no matter how cute.

In other words, Stine, however personal her casting choices or esoteric (and gorgeous) her delivery, is illuminating the trials and adventure of life. And with this exhibition, Stine is reaching for the climax of a dark and lengthy narrative arc, the sort of ogre battle ground in which good or evil might ultimately triumph. It’s a going concern for everyone. In the end we’re all dogs, rats, and weasels.