excerpt from
Passionate '2000½' takes pulse of millennial zeitgeist
by Regina Hackett

Seattle's Rachel Maxi paints desolate little landscapes that are redeemed by the quality of their light: long, low and startlingly acute. Palm-size and smaller, her oil paintings on masonite are displayed in glass cases as if they were teacups, amulets or illuminated manuscripts.

By giving these emblems of elbow room so little space, the artist suggests that the fierce and haunting clarity of her work has nowhere to go in the new age.