Rae Trimmier attended The University of Alabama, where she studied painting with Al Sella. After graduation, she was a high school art teacher in the Tuscaloosa school system. Trimmier is primarily known for her colorful abstract paintings. In recent years, she has returned to her love of ceramics, incorporating black-and-white sculpted clay flowers into her paintings. Her father’s rose garden was an important part of her childhood in Mobile, Alabama. Perhaps that is why she has been attracted to using them in her work. She uses a Cassius Basaltic clay for most of her ceramics, which has a deep and rich black body to it.
One of Trimmier’s earliest influences was her childhood neighbor, a painter, who she would visit regularly. She also says her parents were supportive of her pursuit in art at the university. Beyond her immediate influences, she has looked to Louise Nevelson, an American sculptor who explored found and industrial materials in large sculptural pieces imbued with the foundations of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Nevelson changed the way Trimmier looked at objects, making her think in a different way about how she incorporates materials in her painting. Besides Trimmier's return to clay, she has been exploring the layering of tissue paper, plexiglass, and other everyday objects.
Trimmier does not use much color in her own work, preferring to stick with only three or four colors in a piece. However, she still finds herself pulled to the color use of the Impressionist painters. Working with color is something she has been trying, in order to stretch herself and develop her skills. She has also been known to keep a photo of her former professor, Al Sella, in her studio, as a reminder to push herself.
Trimmier recently moved her studio space from the third floor of the 21st Street Studios to the first floor just behind the Ground Floor Contemporary Gallery. Trimmier took a studio away from home only a few years ago when she had “a certain birthday” and decided it was time to really focus on her art. She finds having a studio away from home allows her to leave one world and enter another. She also treats her studio as a job, where she can focus without distractions. Trimmier immerses herself in music while working, to keep her creative focus.
What Trimmer likes most about having a studio in a building of artists is the safe environment it creates, where people can be experimental with their work and get honest feedback and encouragement.
Her work is included in private collections in Alabama, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, and New York.
