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Rochelle Marcus Dinkin is a Philadelphia-based painter and mixed media artist. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ certificate program and holds an MFA from the University of the Arts. Dinkin’s lush, ornately patterned compositions illustrate scenes from an ongoing mythic fairytale based around a central female character, The Mystical Heroine. The works entice the viewer to embark on her journey, traveling through magical realms where personal mythologies unfold. Dinkin’s influences include medieval art, folklore, outsider art, Jewish thought, and her own personal experiences as a woman, wife, mother and former art therapist. Each piece is a vignette of an enchanting, colorful, and allegorical world filled with human archetypes, fantastical animals, symbolic imagery, and intricately hand-drawn patterns.Dinkin has been the subject of over 40 solo exhibitions in the Philadelphia area and New York City. She has been the recipient of the Pratt Award, the Drake prize and the Fleisher Art Memorial prize. In 2022 she had a one-woman show at PAFA, the oldest art academy and museum in the country.


 

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a mystery to me. It is a stream of consciousness, it is a relationship, an unconscious dream in which at the end I try to uncover, reveal, and understand as one would a jigsaw puzzle. How do these pieces fit together in a cohesive whole? My answer is that these are my perceptions of the ongoing universal story of women; their roles, joys, sorrows, and triumphs. Using art as my vehicle I express my commentaries, reactions, and responses. It is my quest to explore age-old questions of humanity and the mysteries they entail. My stories are women’s stories, focusing on our relationships and our roles. My exploration of what it means to be a woman encompasses both secular madonnas and temptresses. These contrasting images appear throughout my work: the mountain woman, anchoring, strong, and formidable vs. the floating woman, unstable, diagonal and off balance. I want my art to be provocative, but most of all, it must be beautiful and magical. 

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