Q: Your work has been described as “beautiful but unsettling.” How do you respond to that? (Question from “Pastel, Passion, and Perseverance: An Interview with Barbara Rachko” in .ART Odyssey: Healing)
Barbara’s Studio
A: For me, every painting I make is beautiful. Beauty is vital. I see the figures in my pastel paintings as misunderstood, colorful misfits—archetypes—certainly not terrifying or unsettling. In the studio, what I’m often doing is solving technical challenges: figuring out how to depict feathers in pastel, how to lead the viewer’s eye around the painting in complex ways using detail, contrast, and color. Meanings emerge later, when others look and bring their own perspectives. I never want to dictate interpretation. People should be free to see what speaks to them.
Comments are welcome!
Posted on August 22, 2026, in 2026, Bolivianos, Pastel Painting, Photography, Studio, Working methods and tagged .ART Odyssey: Healing, archetypes, around, “Pastel Passion and Perseverance: An Interview with Barbara Rachko”, beautiful, beauty, challenges, color, colorful, complex, contrast, depict, described, detail, dictate, emerge, feathers, figures, figuring out, interpretation, meanings, misfits, misunderstood, others, painting, pastel, pastel paintings, people, perspectives, question, respond, solving, speaks, Studio, technical, terrifying, unsettling, viewer. Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Q: Your work has been described as “beautiful but unsettling.” How do you respond to that? (Question from “Pastel, Passion, and Perseverance: An Interview with Barbara Rachko” in .ART Odyssey: Healing).
