Rachel Feinstein

Rachel Feinstein’s work encompasses sculpture, installation, drawing and painting, bringing together influences from different historical periods and visual worlds. Baroque and Rococo meet Christian iconography, traditional fairy tales and contemporary popular culture. Central to her practice are themes of femininity, beauty and the construction of fantasy worlds, which Feinstein often develops into complex, immersive environments. In 2018, she drew inspiration from the Rococo pedestals of Nymphenburg modeller Franz Anton Bustelli, translating them into life-size garden sculptures. In 2020, the Jewish Museum in New York presented Maiden, Mother, Crone, the artist’s first retrospective. Feinstein lives and works in New York.

For Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, Rachel Feinstein developed Secrets in collaboration with Gagosian, an edition comprising eight hand-painted porcelain figures. The series is based on a group of life-size figures that Feinstein created in 2018 for her first major solo exhibition at Gagosian in Los Angeles. In Secrets, she explores the visual world of Victoria’s Secret and its staging of idealised female bodies. In Feinstein’s figures, the flawless models transform into grotesque, burlesque characters, while luxurious lingerie and jewellery dissolve into vivid, almost mud-like fields of colour. Translated into porcelain, the work combines Nymphenburg’s tradition of figurative sculpture with a contemporary exploration of beauty, consumerism and femininity.

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