Rebecca Beachy

Artist, Writer, Educator

2019 Make a Wave

Visual Arts

Rebecca is a queer, Chicago-based artist, writer and educator whose practice explores the complex relationships we have with the natural world. Sculptures, collected/transformed matter, and de-compositions (objects and sculptures that lose structure with time) are deployed to call in and question inherent matters—the innards of daily experience, life cycles, death, and transformation. Immanent qualities, uncanniness, and poetics are engaged through rooting into and unearthing the nature of substance and how we deal with it. The ethic of the work revolves around giving attention to the interplay of tangible presence in relation to the potency of symbolic forms. The hope of this way of working is to find insight, resonance and movement within what is common but not recognized and to call attention to the difficult divisions in the way we relate to nature and our own corporeal existence. Rebecca holds an MA in Art History and an MFA in Studio arts from the University of Illinois, Chicago. She also holds a DIY in both bird taxidermy (learned and practiced at Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum) and ancient Hellenistic Astrology.

Exhibitions: Driehaus Museum, Chicago (upcoming), 6018North/ARTEXPO, Chicago; Hypercultural Passengers, Hamburg, Germany; Roman Susan Art, Chicago; Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University, Chicago; Sector 2337, Chicago; New Capital Projects, Chicago; Iceberg Projects, Chicago; FRISE, Hamburg, Germany. Publications: Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, UK; Æther Sofia/Haga, Bulgaria, Netherlands; City Creatures, University of Chicago Press, New New Corpse, Green Lantern Press. Bibliography: Sixty Inches from Center, White Hot Magazine; ArtSlant; Hyperallergic; Armseye; Art Papers; NewCityChicago; Chicago Reader; Chicago Tribune.

Rebecca Beachy's Website

A small, still pool of water is surrounded by dark, jagged rocks. The smooth surface of the pool seems to reflect the sky, showing two bright, white circular shapes resembling moons or lights against the dark rock.

Silvering, Full Moon, August 30, 2023 - Silver leaf, found plastic, bottles, bones, stones +, Lake Superior water, Scoville Point, Isle Royale National Park, Michigan Photograph by Rebecca Beachy and Liz Weinstein

Featured Artworks

A minimalist room with an asphalt floor, traffic cones, and cascading white ceiling tiles. Copper foil stretches hold clay and organic objects, some on bird spikes. Sunlight filters in, casting shadows and illuminating the central area.

Growing down Installation view, solo exhibition, Roman Susan Art Foundation, 2020

A large, textured gray canvas with abstract, mixed tones of white and gray is displayed on a backdrop of brown, framed glass doors. The painting's rough, mottled surface features streaks and patches of lighter shades.

Bone ash wall (w/Christine Wallers) Amish horse & cow bones (kiln fired), gum arabic, talc, water. 6018North, Chicago, 2024

A gallery with a large dark-grey painting on the left wall, flanked by two smaller grey wall works on the right wall. The polished floor has a cracked appearance, with several small grey ash casts and a white ceiling tile platform placed on it.

In no time (w/Christine Wallers) Installation detail. Floor works by Rebecca Beachy, wall work by Rebecca Beachy & Christine Wallers, Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University & Roman Susan Art Foundation, Chicago, 2019

A narrow backyard at dusk features uneven grass on both sides and a central gravel pathway leading to a brick wall. The left wall is adorned with green glass tiles, subtly lit by yellow lights. The right wall has grey tiles with ivy.

Gravel path Photograph by Claire Britt Cremated Amish horse bones (Chesterhill, Ohio) 30 x 15 feet, as exhibited at Sector2337, Chicago, 2017

A minimalist room with exposed brick wall on the left and plain white walls elsewhere. The room has a narrow horizontal window near the floor emitting an orange light. In the center, a folded blue horse blanket lies on a dark, glossy tiled floor.

Warm (from "The Bearer" w/Walker Blackwell) Wall photograph by Walker Blackwell Behind the gallery wall: dust of 109 dozen factory farmed eggshells, collected and ground up by hand, beneath 4 brooding heat lamps. On the gallery floor, a used horse blanket. Iceberg Projects, Chicago, 2013

A white pillow lies on a dark, reflective tile floor. Sunlight streams through a skylight, casting angular light over part of the pillow. The background features a rough, light brown stone wall. The scene has a minimalist and serene atmosphere.

Pillow (found down) Cotton gauze, down feathers (found & plucked), 2009-ongoing, as exhibited at Iceberg Projects, Chicago, 2013