RACHEL RAMPLEMAN

October 9 – December 23, 2015

Carl Solway Gallery presented three solo exhibitions of artwork incorporating light, motion, video projection and various forms of technology.  Erwin Redl’s exhibition, featuring work from 2010-2015, will include an installation composed of digitally controlled LED light sculptures, kinetic sculpture, drawings and prints. Pascal Dufaux builds kinetic sculptures incorporating video cameras, ceramic, metal and glass that he refers to as Alien Forms. Rachel Rampleman’s exhibition will consist of two experimental projected videos: Busby Berkeley 2.0, from 2014 and Water/Light Study, from 2015 and another looped video on a traditional monitor.

Rachel Rampelman primarily works with time-based media and her videos explore subjects as varied as gender, artifice and spectacle.  She frequently showcases strong female personalities, such as bodybuilders and women in hair metal tribute bands, who challenge common notions of femininity.  From a series of videos titled Burlesques/Showgirl Studies, Busby Berkeley 2.0 transforms and abstracts the bird’s-eye views from an example of Busby Berkeley’s cinematic choreography. Water/Light Study focuses on the more reflective and contemplative side of her work.   Many of her pieces exhibit a hypnotic quality characterized by repetitive motion and symmetrical patterning, such as with Bellmer Burlesque.

This spring, CEPA (The Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art) in Buffalo, New York presented a major survey of Rampleman’s work titled Baby’s on Fire.  Her work has been shown and screened in numerous New York locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Governor’s Island Art Fair and The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.  Internationally, her work has been shown at the Shanghai Biennale (Brooklyn Pavilion); JAM in Bangkok, Thailand; throughout Europe at Art Cinema OFFoff; and the Secret Cabinet in Berlin. She is a native Cincinnatian who holds a B.F.A. from the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and received an M.F.A from New York University.  She currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Esopus, New York.  In addition to her artwork, Rampleman is engaged in curatorlal projects in alternative spaces in the New York area.