about
(b.1995) rachel b. is a new jersey-based artist crawling around garden state parkway exit 105.
she is a bug girl, and lifelong collector. during the summers of the coronavirus pandemic, she spent time sucking up hundreds of invasive lanternflies with her Ryobi battery-powered vacuum to humanely euthanize them in her workplace freezer. in 2024 she flew to Chicago to witness the double emergence of cicada broods XIII and XIX, which were infected with a parasitic fungus that turned them into sex-crazed bug zombies. she has also purchased dozens of jars of cicada molts, collected by a 9-year-old boy on the internet.
outside of these personal expeditions, a few of her favorite influences are Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori, co-founders and designers of the Pokémon franchise, the overdue library book she never read: Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World by Marlene Zuk, and Disney/Pixar’s 1998 animated film A Bug’s Life.
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conceptually, my art practice is inspired by bugs; often those with six legs and then there’s the kind without.
my bugs are fixations- earworms, neuroses, haunts and plague. currently my brain is bugged by flocks of Wawa convenience stores, horny house flies and the drone hysteria that possessed media headlines back in 2024. to “catch a bug” is a phrase i tick on often as i work. using soft pottery clay, i morph these concepts into small, handheld novelties to try and pin down the fixations. i repeatedly hand-form and kiln-bake multiples of the same object, hatching collections of ceramic “bugs”.
holding the object in my hand helps me to understand its true nature, but to collect them all is somewhat of its own bug.i’m interested in the cognitive bug that is collecting and the life cycle of collected things. after objects are collected, are they put on display? are they played with? are they hidden away from view? when is a collection complete? and how did it begin? the importance of collection in my work magnifies questions of desire, obsession, value and nostalgia.
i want observers of my art to take part in my obsessions, to hold bugs in their own hands, and to find value and desire in things that would otherwise be stepped over (or stepped on). the next time someone drives past Wawa on the way to work i want them to feel a nostalgic itch, to keep their eyes to the skies or check for ghosts under rocks— to catch the bug.
once in their final physical form, i meticulously document and archive the accumulated swarm of my bugs, preparing for their inevitable release back into the state from which they emerged.
cv
Group Exhibitions (** curated, * co-curated)
2025
Personal Landscapes - 200 Monmouth St, Red Bank, NJ
2023
LUNCHMEATS - Chashama Studios, Matawan, NJ**
No Experience Necessary - Atlantic Highlands Art Council, Atlantic Highlands, NJ
2022
sloppy 2nds - Chashama Studios, Matawan, NJ**
2021
Homegrown - 320 W 23rd, New York, NY
The Chashama Matawan 11 - Atlantic Highlands Art Council, Atlantic Highlands, NJ
2020
LUCK - Chashama Studios, Matawan, NJ
2017
Co-curate Shows: Implicate Order - Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ*
Proverbial Balls - Livingston Arts Building, Piscataway, NJ
CATAWAMPUS - Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ*
2016
Same Boat - Livingston Arts Building, Piscataway, NJ*
When It's Over - Window Displays at Rite-Aid, Highland Park, NJ
Art in a State of Mobility - Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ*
The Gory Hole - Livingston Arts Building, New Brunswick, NJ
Hit the Showers - Livingston Installation and Performance Space, Piscataway, NJ*
Inhabitance - Rutgers Gardens, North Brunswick, NJ*
I AM: A Group Exhibition with Malala - Con Artist Collective, New York, NY
Residencies
Chashama - Matawan, NJ 2020 - 2025
Education
BFA in Sculpture - Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University 2017 - summa cum laude
Awards
Outstanding Achievement Award - Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University 2017