Work samples
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Feeling Tingly?
Feeling Tingly? invites viewers to participate in exploring the nuances of sensation and to question the complexities of human perception in a world increasingly shaped by synthetics. The work is experienced both through physical environments and digital spaces that stimulate the senses. This duality of experiences bridges the gap between the tangible and intangible, real and the imagined.
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Portal ASMR
Inspired by the internet phenomenon of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), this series offers a new way to uncover strangely satisfying experiences in everyday moments through hypnotic sounds, textures, and visuals. Through the use of chroma key visual effect technique to superimpose a new background onto an original image. This work is intended to offer new sensibilities for reframing our bodies as interconnected with both the natural and synthetic.
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The Air is Plastic
The Air Is Plastic is an invitation to curiosity and pleasure. The work presents itself as a sensory experience, welcoming participants to move through and around the suspended plastic. To engage multiple modalities through visual, tactile, and auditory experiences, this work offers new sensibilities for reframing our bodies with plastic.
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Float
In this project, Forces of Nature, man-made objects are placed into a serene natural landscape - creating imagery that invites the viewer to question their own personal impact on the natural environment. Like a dance, my body moves with the plastic materials through the landscape with both tension and grace. The transitory nature of plastic creates an antimonumental quality, giving less empowerment to the materials and more power to the forces of nature that move it.
About Rachel
Rachel Stein is an artist and educator based in Baltimore, Maryland. She creates video, photography, sound, and interactive sensory environments to activate the mind through curiosity and play. Her interest in the connection between tactile experiences and inner states of being has inspired her to consider ways of reframing the body in relation to everyday materials, particularly synthetic materials. With the pervasiveness of synthetics in our lives, she's reconsidering how… more
Feeling Tingly?
Feeling Tingly? invites viewers to participate in exploring the nuances of sensation and to question the complexities of human perception in a world increasingly shaped by synthetics. The work is experienced both through physical environments and digital spaces that stimulate the senses. This duality of experiences bridges the gap between the tangible and intangible, real and the imagined.
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Slime Portal
Wood, Paint, Plastic Containers, Projection, Astroturf, fabric
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Chroma Key Threshold
Fabric, projector (single channel video)
12’ x 14’
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Squishy
Water, gelatin, food dye, foam beads
5" x 7" x 6"
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Fridge Portal
Foam mat, fabric, headphones, PVC, LED light, mini fridge, gelatin, food dye, foam bead, projector (single channel video), audio
17" x 18.5" x 32”
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Feeling Tingly? Installation View
Wood, plastic bag, foam mat, fabric, LED screen (single channel video), headphones, PVC, LED light, mini fridge, gelatin, food dye, foam bead, projector (single channel video), directional speakers
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Wall Portal
Faux fur, single channel video (LED screen)
10” x 6”
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Gooey Entanglement
Glue, Borax, Water, plastic, foam bead, paper, faux fur, LED flashlight.
11” x 6”
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Tube Portal (video still)
Single channel video still
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Feeling Tingly? Installation View
Wood, Faux fur, fabric, audio, LED screen (single channel video)
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Tingly Tunnel
Wood, Faux fur, LED flashlight, plastic hooks, fabric shoe covers
Portals ASMR
Inspired by the internet phenomenon of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), this series offers a new way to uncover strangely satisfying experiences in everyday moments through hypnotic sounds, textures, and visuals. Through the use of chroma key visual effect technique to superimpose a new background onto an original image. Within this framing, the viewer exists in an unknown spatial plane between real and fictional space. This work is intended to offer new sensibilities for reframing our bodies as interconnected with both the natural and synthetic.
The Air is Plastic
The Air is Plastic offers new sensibilities for reframing our bodies with synthetics. This work presents itself as a sensory experience, welcoming participants to engage with the work through visual, tactile, and auditory experiences. My curiosity about the connection between tactile experiences and my inner state of being has inspired me to consider ways of reframing the body in relation to everyday materials, particularly synthetic materials. I’m not concerned with finding stillness in the tangible space, but rather the potential for the viewer to participate in the well being process. The personal agency in activating the work meets the viewer where they are and subverts the social politics of the gallery. I’m interested in the ways the viewer intercepts, is in-between, and is involved in the production of the work.
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The Air is Plastic
The Air Is Plastic is an invitation to curiosity and pleasure. The work presents itself as a sensory experience, welcoming participants to move through and around the suspended plastic. To engage multiple modalities through visual, tactile, and auditory experiences, this work offers new sensibilities for reframing our bodies with plastic.
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Detail- The Air is Plastic
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Detail of "The Air is Plastic"
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Detail of "The Air is Plastic"
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The Air is Plastic II
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Detail of "The Air is Plastic II"
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The Air is Plastic III
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Plastic CurtainPlastic Curtain, Installation, 2022
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Float
Sculpture Installation, 2023
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Floating Still Life #1Sculpture Installation, 2022
Forces of Nature
In this project, Forces of Nature, man-made objects are placed into a serene natural landscape - creating imagery that invites the viewer to question their own personal impact on the natural environment. Like a dance, my body moves with the plastic materials through the landscape with both tension and grace. The transitory nature of plastic creates an antimonumental quality, giving less empowerment to the materials and more power to the forces of nature that move it.
Insert Here
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Ice PlanetsIce Planets, Photography, 2022
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Snow DayPhotography, 2021
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Rainbow BridgePhotography, 2019
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Disjointed HarmonyPhotography, 2020
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Twist and SproutPhotography, 2019
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We Build Them, We Knock Them DownPhotography, 2019
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A Sacred ConfigurationPhotography, 2019
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Finders KeepersPhotography, 2019
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Balancing ActPhotography, 2019
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ReliquaryPhotography, 2019
My Version of America's Majestic Canyons
In my ongoing project, My Version of America’s Majestic Canyons, I am altering the pages of a national geographic magazine by cutting, painting, and collaging to emphasize and conceal different parts of the landscape. With the focus of this project being process based, I am intuitively using color and shape to abstract and change the context of the images. This approach has allowed me to create my own meaning out of preexisting landscapes. Through the colors I am mixing with paint, I am directly referencing the color palette seen in my performance based videos.
Street Portals
My process involves actively photographing and cataloging my daily experiences, a scavenger hunt of sorts that fuels my creativity. My photographs form my own library of color, textures, and shapes that can be reconstructed and reworked to create a new story that is oddly familiar yet disorienting. In addition to my own images, I investigate and manipulate found imagery, both digitally and physically.
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Still StandingDigital Collage, 2019
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The TripletsDigital Collage, 2019
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Investigating Walking FlowersDigital Collage, 2019
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Parallel UnknownCollage, 2020
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The Magic of ManifestationCollage, 2020
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All Portals Lead To The Same PlaceCollage, 2020
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Merged MomentsCollage, 2020
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Cathartic OpeningsCollage, 2020
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Don't Forget To StretchCollage, 2020
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Fall 2012 + Summer 2018= Winter 2020Collage, 2020