Rachel Weiswasser’s paintings vibrate with presence. Her work is an act of reclamation—of flesh, color, and feeling—a refusal of the disembodied, flattened images that saturate contemporary life. In a world where desire is aestheticized, where bodies are reduced to symbols and props, Weiswasser reanimates her subjects, fleshing them out in thick, shimmering layers of paint. Her pointillist technique does not merely depict; it breathes, pulses, and reaches outward, restoring weight and depth to forms that have been made shallow by overexposure. Weiswasser often turns to femininity, human sensuality, and the tension between subject and object, challenging the way women’s bodies have been framed, consumed, and erased by visual culture. In her pieces Inferna and Nostalgia, she delves into themes of retrospection and the complexities of looking into the past. These works explore the process of confronting and reclaiming one's history, examining how past experiences shape present identities. Her paintings hold an unspoken question: how do we re-enter our own bodies after we’ve been reduced to an image? Beyond its feminist critique, Weiswasser’s work demands something visceral from the viewer—a confrontation with their own perception, their own capacity to feel. Color, in her hands, is more than a compositional tool; it is a force, vibrating with an undeniable presence. The play of hues and textures allows her subjects to exist not as fixed representations, but as something truer—flesh and sensation made visible. In a culture addicted to the illusion of the image, Weiswasser’s work is a return to matter, to touch, to the thick and complicated reality of existence.
My work is driven by an obsession with the tension between memory and materiality—how images, like memories, can shift, distort, and dissolve over time. I paint to reclaim presence, to flesh out the intangible, and to capture what is lost in the flattening of experience into image. Through layering, texture, and pointillist mark-making, I work to restore weight and depth to subjects that might otherwise disappear into the noise of contemporary visual culture. I hold a Master’s degree in History of Art and Cultural Heritage from University College London and a Bachelor’s in Art History with a minor in Creative Writing from New York University. My academic background has given me a deep understanding of art’s historical context, but my practice is fueled by a need to move beyond theory into the physicality of paint. The process of making—of layering color, building texture, and allowing paint to dictate form—is just as important as the subject itself.I have exhibited in New York, London, and beyond, with recent shows at Sovereign House (Lower East Side), AP Gallery (Chelsea), and Oxford Gallery (UK). My paintings are part of private collections in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and I have been featured in Divide Magazine and Suboart Magazine. Each of these experiences has reinforced my belief in the necessity of artistic community. Growing up in New York City, I was immersed in artist-run spaces and shared studios, which shaped my understanding of how dialogue and critique push work forward. At this stage in my career, I seek opportunities that will allow me to expand my practice, push the scale and depth of my work, and continue engaging with an artistic community. I am particularly interested in residencies that emphasize experimentation, material exploration, and conversation.
