EMAIL: STUDIO(at)RACHELMICAWEISS(dot)COM
Rachel Mica Weiss (b. Rockville, MD, 1986) examines how boundaries are constructed and destabilized. Working with several interrelated material processes, her practice is concerned with the relationship between bodies and the structures that contain them - whether architectural, psychological, or symbolic. Weiss approaches materials as active frameworks, foregrounding the ways that form organizes space and produces conditions of vulnerability. Across sculpture and fiber-based works, Weiss investigates how objects designed to protect or regulate bodies accumulate symbolic power. Drawing from forms associated with containment and authority, these structures retain the visual language of function while failing to perform it. Chainmail carved from alabaster cannot defend. A stone lock cannot secure. Jewelry weighted with keys becomes a burden rather than an adornment. By interrupting utility, Weiss exposes protection as conditional and reveals how systems of control are embedded within material form. By also reflecting geological processes—slow erosion, sustained pressure, incremental change—the works position the body within a longer material and temporal process. In parallel, Weiss’s fiber practice extends weaving into spatial and architectural contexts, where thread and tension operate as structural elements. Subtle shifts in color accumulate across the surface, producing gradients that appear painted, yet remain entirely constructed through tension and repetition. The clarity of the structure allows the viewer to sense both the precision of the system and the vulnerability of the material held within it. Together these practices form a continuous investigation into how systems of mediation, containment, and control shape experience. Whether through carved stone or woven thread, Weiss treats material structures as sites where bodies, space, and time are regulated, allowing sculpture and fiber to operate as parallel expressions of the same underlying forces.
Weiss earned a BA in psychology from Oberlin College and an MFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is the recipient of: an Investing in Professional Artists Grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments (2020) and a San Francisco Foundation Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship (2011). She has been invited to the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL (2020), funded by the Heinz Endowments; 100 W Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, Corsicana, TX (2020), funded by a Navarro Council for the Arts Grant; Lux Art Institute Residency, Encinitas, CA (2018); and Marble House Project Residency, Dorset, VT (2015), among other residencies.
Weiss has been the subject of nine solo exhibitions and has created public artworks for venues worldwide, including for the US Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Airbnb, Seattle, WA; and The Pittsburgh International Airport. Recent commissions include The Wild Within for the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, and Boundless Topographies, her largest permanent installation to date, which was funded by the Gates Foundation and recently installed at the University of Washington’s Hans Rosling Center for Population Health in Seattle.
Weiss’ work is included in several public and private collections including that of the State Department’s Art in Embassies Program; Microsoft; Wells Fargo; TIAA; Boston Consulting Group; Media Math Corporate Collection; Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center, as well as the collections of Francis J. Greenberger, Beth Rudin deWoody and The Weissman Family.
Rachel Mica Weiss is represented by CARVALHO, New York.
