STATEMENT
My sculptures are labored reconstructions of preexisting forms. I find my subject matter through research and observation; I search for links connecting my experience with collective, ancestral, and environmental histories, particularly related to the Pacific and Hawai`i, my birthplace. I am also motivated to search for connections across oceans and across time. I challenge myself to remake an object on my terms, to tell a new story while accounting for my perspective. My previous installations are comprised of cabinets, chambers, and caskets. They are based on early European designs to extract and convey trees and plants from tropical territories. I altered the original ‘blueprints’ and manipulated color, material, and context to interlink past and present and address ecological legacies. In these works, I foreground a contradictory vitality with sculpted botanical forms evoking fecundity and rot. Throughout my practice, the referent is a scaffolding or armature to create something Other, something with a new meaning.
rachelledang@gmail.com
Instagram: @rachelledang.studio