Rebecca Guay is an artist known early in her career as an illustrator, commissioned for work on role-playing games, collectible card games, comic books, as well as work on children's literature. Guay subsequently turned primarily toward gallery work, opening her first solo exhibition in 2013 at the R.Michelson Gallery.
After the completion of her last two painted graphic novels in 2011, she began focusing primarily on large scale gallery work done in oil. Her gallery work focuses on the figure with the goal being a strong emotional connection to the audience. She opened her first solo exhibition in September 2013 at the R. Michelson Gallery. Her pieces have since been shown and acquired by private collectors and several museums, including the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. In a crossover between her gallery work and her work in illustration, one of her pieces, The Visitor, was chosen as the cover of Spectrum 21.
Fandom
After the release of Onslaught |Onslaught, it was reported on Magic the Gathering news sites that Guay had been informed that the seven works she created for the set would be her last. In what the sites reported to be her own words: "the new art director, Jeremy Cranford, thinks my work is too feminine for the vision he has for the game." Amid fan outrage, Wizards of the Coast released a statement clarifying their position — that Guay was never fired, but simply not contracted as a freelance artist for Legions |Legions, and that her work would be used in future sets: Wizards of the Coast used Guay's work for at least seven Magic sets and a number of other products since then. One of the commissioned works, a tribute to the controversy, appeared in the 2004 joke set Unhinged |Unhinged: A card satirizing Jeremy Cranford also appeared in Unhinged:
Evolution
In 2014 Guay launched a Kickstarter project collecting her artworks from 1993 to 2014, EVOLUTION. It was successfully funded by her fans in March of the same year and arrived from publication in January, 2015.
Guay's work won as Best in Show'at Gen Con in 2004, and she was elected Best Artist in 2005 by InQuest Magazines Fan Choice Awards. Guay's work on Sandman: The Book of Destiny was nominated for Eisner Award in 1998, and Flight of Angels for Vertigo was a 2013 YALSA pick. Guay has received multiple awards for her gallery work and has been the recipient of several industry honors, including two gold medals from Spectrum.
