ARTISTS STATEMENT
My work explores visual codes and perceptions of taste in the social construction and framing of gender and identity through the lens of domesticity, nostalgia, fashion and style. Primary source material is collected in flea markets, thrift shops and my home, and includes vintage and contemporary magazines and books, alongside found or discarded ephemera. Digital and assemblage elements are often incorporated into compositions. Written text accompanying source material in its original arrangement helps inform the identity of components and give shape to the substance of narratives. Playing with art historical and cultural imagery, theatrical vignettes celebrate tropes of beauty, desire, and extravagance. They invite the viewer to indulge in the moment on display and to disconnect through a dream world fantasy, while reflecting on the complexity and legacy of stereotypes and privilege.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rebecca Steiner is a collage artist from Lyme, Connecticut. Steiner’s background is in art history, with professional experience at galleries and museums, as well as creating and operating a crowd-sourced photography project “The Average Joe Photo Show.” Steiner participated in the Kolaj Institute Collage & Illustration Residency to explore through contemporary collage Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” (publication released December 2024). A second Kolaj Institute Residency, reinterpreting through a modern lens Virginia Woolf’s classic text “Orlando: A Biography,” will culminate in a newly illustrated edition in 2025 showcasing the resulting collages. Steiner’s work has been featured in Kolaj Magazine, and in group exhibitions including The Every Woman Biennial 2024 at La MaMa Galleria (New York, NY), at MAPSpace (Port Chester, NY), Hudson Valley MOCA (Peekskill, NY), the Bristol Art Museum (Bristol, RI), and in the ongoing holiday project “Miss Florence’s Artist Trees” at the Florence Griswold Museum (Old Lyme, CT).
© Rebecca C. Steiner