Re-enacting reverie
painting by Michael Raucheisen
American artist’s “Dream Project” reaches completion
ON THE NIGHT that Boston artist and musician Michael Raucheisen and his wife returned from their honeymoon in Europe, the couple were involved in what should have been a fatal car crash. Instead, the couple walked away from the 2006 accident without a single scratch. That night, Raucheisen had a dream of a very specific, and ultimately very elusive, painting.
“I began to dream of a painting over our bed,” explained Raucheisen. “I dreamt it every single night without fail.”
Raucheisen’s dreams presented him with a consistent, distinct, and vivid image of a work he had never attempted nor even considered.
“It was half green and half blue, with a black stripe, a white stripe, and a silver strip down the centre,” he detailed. “Very plain—signed in red.”
At first Raucheisen didn’t know what to make of this dream, but as it continued, he felt like he had to do something.
“I dreamt it every night and I had no idea why,” he said. “The dreams became so intense that I finally, obviously, had to paint this thing.”
Raucheisen began by re-creating two copies of the dream painting and, once again, circumstances were moved beyond his control.
“When I went to complete them, I spilled some white paint across the one canvas. I actually thought it was ruined, but it began to take on a whole new life, with the green and the blue, and the emotion of the white paint.”
The next year, Raucheisen was celebrating Thanksgiving with his family when they ended up driving past the site of their crash. He was reminded of the accident, but most particularly the trip they had been on.
“I thought, the year ahead—2009—is going to be a big year. We’re getting a new president, and there’s so much going on in the world. I started to reflect on all the things we saw in Italy, Greece, and Turkey,” said Raucheisen. “The most memorable things are the arts. The things that people painted, or that people sculpted at that time that were surviving thousands of years.”
This inspired Raucheisen to develop his “Dream Project.” He set out to chronicle the year 2009 in a collection of 365 similar, but distinct, paintings and adding handwritten notes on the back of each.
“I came up with the concept of documenting every day in 2009 with a painting [and] on the back of every [piece] is basically a diary of what happened in my life, or what happened in the world.”
Some of Raucheisen’s notes document events in his own life or descriptions of his day, but others have a much wider, global scope.
“It’s what personally grabs me,” he said.
Two days before the completion of the project, Raucheisen reflected on the elements of the year he captured in his art.
“I love the concept of abstract. People’s minds are instinctively searching to make sense of something. When they see an abstract painting, at least when I do, you want to find something in it, you want to see faces, you want to see shapes, you want to see patterns.
“I can look back and see days that were calm, or frustrating, or happy, or sad, and I think it does reflect in the painting,” Raucheisen said, applying his philosophy to his own sense of perception. “Do I feel a certain way on Mondays? Are there more circles in January? Once again, there’s a lack of understanding of what it means. There’s definitely a quality that I think is reflective of what happened to me personally, or in the world.”
Raucheisen’s work will first be on display in Reykjavik, Iceland in March. The artist said he hoped to book more showings and to bring his project to a wider audience in time. He added that he will try to keep the collection together until he is done showing, then promises that he’s going to hang the painting of his dreams over his bed.
A sampling of Raucheisen’s work and information about his progress are available at artreview.com/profile/MichaelRaucheisen.
