“Any time you enter your painting into an exhibition and you win an award, it is a humbling and wonderful experience.”
That from painter and Medford resident Rita Kieffer.
Kieffer won an Award of Excellence for her 9/11 inspired oil painting, “Portrait of a Hero,” at the Medford Arts Center’s current exhibition, “America, An Artist’s Reflection,” part of Medford Township’s 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy, hosted by the Medford Cultural Arts Commission.
“I’m very flattered,” she said, noting she was surprised to have won.
“I consider myself a student of life and of painting,” Kieffer said. “I think there’s always something to learn.”
She also said she was “amazed” at the great competition for the award.
Kieffer paints in an indirect, classical realist style, beginning with a precise drawing and underpainting, followed by several layers of oil paint to create texture, depth and detail. She has exhibited her work in more than 50 regional, national and international juried shows and prestigious venues.
While there are so many inspiring painters, Kieffer said she loves the old masters, those who painted previous to the Impressionistic period.
Different artists influenced her in different ways.
For example, Michelangelo Caravaggio showed Kieffer how to manipulate light and shadow.
She is also inspired by the lives of these painters, not just their work.
Kieffer said she can relate to painter Artemisia Gentileschi because Kieffer is a single mom and has struggled to balance the demands of being a single parent with fulfilling her dream to be an artist.
Kieffer admitted she has had to stop painting in the past to focus on other priorities.
Sam, Kieffer’s 18-year-old son, is featured in the winning painting. He was 8 when she worked on it. “Portrait of a Hero” took about a year to complete after 9/11, which was where she found inspiration.
Because it was difficult for Sam to stay still and pose, Kieffer used photos to help with the composition.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude in English literature and writing from Columbia University, is also a published poet, and sees literature and poetry as inextricably linked to painting.
“Poetry that communicates, like the art of the realist, is based on a keen observation of life colored with emotion, both personal and universal,” Kieffer said. “Painting, like poetry, is a way of seeing and connecting with the world, and if one can infuse a painting with the depth and emotion of a poem and say something beyond the technical rendering of observable detail, then this is art.”
She also holds a Master of Science degree in education and worked as a teacher in New York City before moving in 1998 to New Jersey, where she began painting full-time.
“Portrait of a Hero” and other paintings by area artists commemorating 9/11 are on view through Oct. 2 at the MAC at 18 North Main Street in Medford.
