As part of Simon Draper's ongoing Habitat for Artists project, Molly Rausch created a Lost & Found Drawing Booth on Main Street in New Paltz for 3 weeks in August 2009. There she collected written descriptions of things people had lost, then made drawings based on the descriptions, and mailed the drawings of the lost items to their respective owners. Rausch received over 75 responses, ranging from the concrete to the esoteric, and has compiled a book of the collection (all text was transcribed for anonymity).

Her project plays with that tactical space between words and pictures, object and atmosphere, self and other. The finished drawings answer their queries in ways that are sometimes serious, teasing, laugh-out-loud funny, and poignant.

Rausch draws, paints, and builds treehouses in New Paltz, New York. She received her MFA in Painting from SUNY New Paltz in 2003. Working primarily with oil on plywood, her paintings are often deceptively simple and very direct depictions of everyday objects. Despite, or perhaps because of, this economy of means, her work has both great humor and depth. In times dominated by all-pervasive communications technology, Rausch has eliminated from her work everything that might dampen the immediacy of direct experience. She is represented by VanBrunt Gallery in Beacon.

See the web site for Habitat for Artists.

Visit our artist's web site: Molly Rausch.