with Rachael Kucken | Co-Curated with Critical Stuff Collective
A weekly painting series running from June 20th to September 22nd, the official first and last days of summer. Over these thirteen weeks, Rachael Kucken will create one painting each week, each housed in a small gold frame.
New paintings will be shared every Friday throughout the summer.
This series is part documentation, part quiet inquiry. Rachael has found herself longing to better understand the choices she makes in her art—the moments, memories, and symbols that rise to the surface when she sits down to paint. Gilded Summer is her way of giving shape to that longing.
Summer, for her, has always held a strange kind of weight: a season that feels fleeting and almost infinite at once. By tying this project to the exact boundaries of the season, she is forcing herself to notice it. To hold it still long enough to ask why it moves her, and what stories live inside it.
This series isn’t just a reflection of her own summer—it’s also an offering. A visual rhythm that mirrors something many of us feel: the desire to hold onto the warmth, the slowness, the light. She hopes that these weekly paintings might become a kind of shared archive—a reminder of what your summer may look like, too.
This is her embracing her summer. Week by week, frame by frame, hoping to find something true.
Gilded Summer
Week Two
This painting is divided into seven slots, each showing a part of the world around me that day. These slots are inspired by the days of the week that I now very consciously fill. Branches, leaves, twigs, the river, and scattered light all come together to fill a whole. Each piece might seem small on its own, but together they reveal a delicate balance of place, memory, and process.
The composition reflects the rhythm of the season, how moments unfold to create a bigger, more complex picture. At the center is a plant I faced as I painted. It might seem insignificant, compared to all the foliage imaged, yet it was what fate put directly in front of me that day. I was guided to be there with this plant, in this specific space full of life. I was witness to these quiet moments, and can always keep them close.
Week One
This painting captures the quiet beginning of summer. Freshly cut locks of my hair rest gently on a plantain leaf, atop my beloved quilt, as we sit beside the river. The composition holds a sense of release, yet also of a deep comfort. Bright, sunlit colors mirror the shimmering brilliance of loving nature, and of learning how to let it hold you. It is a lesson my father taught me long ago, and one I will continue to carry. Just like how I will always let this painting carry this moment of time for me, forever.