Rachel Rizzo

In 2022-23 I was able to attend 3 artist residencies in Italy. During my time at the Rural Contemporary residency in Cividate Camuno, I was struck by the layers of history in the surrounding area. Seeing petroglyphs alongside pagan sites of worship, Roman ruins down the street from 15th century churches on hilltops next to fascist era sculpture all while observing ways that the people of the area have maintained traditional practices and found ways to reinterpret them was a source of inspiration. These layers of culture and symbolism are the fodder for my current series. In the largest painting of the series I invented a landscape which fluctuates between reality and abstraction. This landscape is a fantasy version of a place that is both layered and flat, and littered with symbolic references to these experiences. I have extracted and reimagined the symbols in smaller works, creating varied allegorical contexts for them in each new image. I returned to Italy two times in 2023 to continue my investigation at two more residencies. At Bottega Projects in Montebuono, I was able to integrate the rolling hills of the Umbrian landscape as well as imagery from the card game Scopa (using the cards in a divinatory context as well). At Gate44 printmaking studio in Milan, I continued using the same visual language in a series of etching, aquatint and photogravure prints.

This work was shown alongside ceramics by Zoë Wyner at Machines with Magnets Gallery in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in the summer-fall of 2023

This body of work was created during 2019-2021. I started thinking about the interior space of my small apartment, and the few exterior worlds I had access to. These exterior worlds extended to what was happening politically. Like many, I was engaging in protest and trying to figure out how to navigate the political climate as an artist and a public school teacher. I was thinking about presence and absence, how we connect and engage with community, and how we take connection for granted. This idea extended to literary worlds, virtual space and abstract interior worlds.

The installation Can’t Connect was created in 2018 and presented at Massachusetts College of Art and Design as my Master’s thesis. The “poor image”, a phrase coined by Hito Steyerl in her essay In Defense of the Poor Image, has become one of the many signifiers of human connection and disconnection in the internet age. In this installation of paintings and sculpture I examine the poor images and symbols that have been generated by my own relationship to the internet. The works investigate the creation of those digital images and how they have become part of my personal relationships. Each image I work from is a screen shot of another image that I have generated. Sometimes they are evidence of digital interactions on Instagram or moments of a video chat. Symbols of the world of the internet such as a cursor or the ubiquitous “sad cloud” symbol that pops up when the internet connection is interrupted are integrated into the installations as reminders that these images are not made en plein air, but from the digital screen. The labor of painting these images on canvas allows me to revisit the tension between the virtual and physical moment in all its’ messiness, beauty and vulnerability, and be forced to sit with it, analyze it, turn it into contemplative work instead of escaping into superficial, or fleeting and finite feelings that the internet provides.

These works made between 2016 and 2018 all engage with ideas of landscape, abstraction and symbolism. This work consists of imagined worlds that include references to landscape, but incorporate surreal and cartoonishly flat symbols and shapes. Some works include direct references to particular figures and places, but all of these works exist in the dreamlike place between reality and invention.