| In striking resemblance to the paintings of Salvador Dali, Rhyner’s work is a collection of wavering, hazy, amorphous skies and landscapes that serve as a slightly confused and distorted foundation for the paintings surreal contortions that are the painter’s subjects and figures. Often dissected and discontinued in unnatural places and frequently found with inhuman, robotic appendages the painting’s figures have a purposely fictitious and delusive quality to them. |  |
In striking resemblance to the paintings of Salvador Dali, Rhyner’s work is a collection of wavering, hazy, amorphous skies and landscapes that serve as a slightly confused and distorted foundation for the paintings surreal contortions that are the painter’s subjects and figures. Often dissected and discontinued in unnatural places and frequently found with inhuman, robotic appendages the painting’s figures have a purposely fictitious and delusive quality to them.
Rhyner’s skillfulness as a painter is made obvious in these works. So sensitively painted are they that the viewer is able to sense the delicate pulling in and out of existence of these figures on the artist’s imagined wind. Her brush stroke is soft and even; her paintings avoid the thought of medium and indulging purely in the fantasy of her imagery.
Including large insects intimidating in size, overtaking human scale, these paintings possess a daunting and menacing anxiety. They at times are composed in such a way that they almost seems as if they were a journaling of phobias, or a peek into happenings of a nightmare. Dark and foreboding some may be, but collectively they never loose their aesthetic elegance, their smooth, slick finish that always remains composed and rather beautiful despite what it may actually be depicting.
Legacy of Water, Rhyner’s most recent work, parallels the sky and sea in a simple setting. Placing two figures on opposite sides with a turning mechanical sphere in between them the composition is more straightforward, speaking of the elements they are composed of. With the whole piece unified in blue, the sky and the sea create a perfectly harmonious and fused connection that occupies the entire view. Not only is the whole environment produced through this monochromatic scheme of waves and wisps of varying blues, but the figures and sphere in the forefront of the composition are also constructed of the same make-up; emerging from the water, they appear to be an extension of it. In form, they still retain human qualities, but in content they are in a state of equilibrium with their surroundings.
