RACHEL FEINSTEIN
b. 1971, United StatesRachel Feinstein’s multipart installations reveal her singular flair for synthesising a myriad of cultural fascinations—religion, myth, beauty, mortality, decadence—into vignettes of the marvellous. Borrowing freely from diverse artistic, architectural, intellectual, and stylistic sources, she explores issues of taste and desire, pairing visual and societal opposites such as romance and pornography; elegance and kitsch; fantasy and the utterly banal. Oil paintings on mirrored surfaces, flat propped sculptures reminiscent of set dressings, and abstracted reworkings of classical sculpture confront persistent issues of artistic representation, such as theatricality and illusionism.
Feinstein was born in 1971 in Fort Defiance, Arizona. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, and at Columbia University, New York, where she received a BA in 1993. Feinstein’s work has been shown in major exhibitions worldwide, including shows at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2000); Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York (2000); Barbican Centre, London (2001); Kent Institute of Art and Design, England (2004); Hyundai Gallery, Beijing (2008); Metropolitan Opera, New York (2009); Le Consortium, Dijon (2011, 2014); and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (2012). Solo exhibitions include Art in the Atrium, organised by Art Production Fund, Sotheby’s, New York (2002); Tropical Rodeo, Le Consortium, Dijon (2006); The Snow Queen, Lever House, New York (2011); and Folly, Madison Square Park, New York (2014).
Feinstein lives and works in New York.
Courtesy Gagosian
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