Meet Rachelle Reichert | Visual Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachelle Reichert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachelle, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
Artists never stop working and their work never stops. They work in their dreams, they work in their day jobs, they work at the grocery store, on a hike, or where ever they are. And there is always more to create.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I create artwork in a variety of media to explore landscapes permanently altered by climate change and industrialization. I am interested in natural materials, earth observation satellite imagery, algorithmic visions, and natural systems to view human behavior’s planetary impact. My research focuses on determined sites–mostly in the Western United States–and a specific extracted material such as salt or clay. Research is then interpreted into drawings, photographs, sculptures, and mixed-media artworks that often focus on materiality of the site. For some bodies of work, I juxtapose natural materials with an algorithmically generated image. My artworks embody multi-scale complexities of observing the natural world, both human and machine, and the emotional connections between the two.

I am very excited about all the work I create. I work in the series, over many years. My most well known body of work is my “Saltworks” series. These are artworks created with salt harvested from the San Francisco Bay to explore the Bay as a site for land restoration, industry, ecology, and technology. This hyper-local body of work reverberates into many larger issues of land use in the American West and land remediation from a toxic past. It is a physical connection to a unique ecosystem: the shores of the San Francisco Bay Area (Lisjan Ohlone territory).

I find the Bay Area inspiring as an artist. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that I am an artist and I live in California. This was my childhood dream but there never seemed a path to get here. Yet, I did, and I find that miraculous.

I am originally from New Jersey, and I did what everyone from Jersey does, which is to move to New York City as a young adult. I found NYC impossible for me as a young artist. I was working two jobs: a full time job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then as a nanny on evenings and weekends. I would wake up at 5am to paint before work. I was totally exhausted and broke and uninspired. After a handful of years in New York and a breakup, I took refuge on my best friend’s couch in Berkeley, CA to escape the cold gray winter. I was only supposed to be in Berkeley for the season, but I ended up never going back east. The first few years in the Bay Area were difficult but I felt nurtured by the community and the natural beauty here.

There were so many times I wanted to quit, but I never stopped making artwork and I think that is what got me through those early years, and even when I was a new mother in the pandemic. So much of being an artist is perseverance and an almost delusional belief in oneself.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
One of my favorite things to do in San Francisco is to bike through the city, especially biking through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach, then picnicking on the beach if it isn’t too windy. Or starting at the Ferry Building on a farmer’s market day, loading up the bike bags with goodies, then biking over the Golden Gate Bridge. I also love a hike or trail run Redwood Regional in Oakland (my local park!) then to the cafe at Chez Panisse. And of course, we will see lots of art but mostly at friend’s studios.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First and foremost, I’d like to credit my father who introduced me to art as a child through the encyclopedic collection of the Met and the grand gestures of AbEx at MoMA. He has always encouraged my path as an artist and has taught me hard work and dedication by example. I also would like to acknowledge my late mentor, Hung Liu, and my husband, artist Miguel Arzabe. Both have been endlessly supportive.

I would also like to mention how truly special the Bay Area artist community is. I am grateful to have artist friendships that uplift one another’s careers and offer support. I have benefited from subsidized art studios and residencies at art non-profit Root Division and initiatives like Minnesota Street Project and the Space Program – I am so grateful to have these opportunities that have bolstered my art career.

Website: www.rachellereichert.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelle_Reichert/

Other: Current exhibitions: Eureka! Creativity in California: Artists of the Golden State Group exhibition at the California Governor’s Mansion, Sacramento, CA through November 2024 Look Up To The Sky, Hung Liu’s Legacy of Mentoring Women Artists Mills College Art Museum, January-March 2024 Upcoming: Out of Site, Survey Science in the West Autry Museum for Getty PST: Art & Science Collide, May 2024-2025

Image Credits
Lucid Art Foundation and Sina Dehghani Meta Sarah Shepard Gallery and Impart Photography Miguel Arzabe Hikmet Kam