Rachel Stern

Rachel Stern is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Union College, specializing in photography and interdisciplinary artistic practice. With an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from RISD, she explores the intersections of desire, visual culture, and critical theory through complex photographic tableaux, installations, and sculptures. Stern's work interrogates authenticity in art, employing kitsch aesthetics and mass-produced materials to challenge traditional visual paradigms.

• Education
  • MFA, Columbia University
  • BFA, Rhode Island School of Design
  • Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Her recent exhibitions—including Lover's Eye (2025) and One Must Not Look At Anything (2023)—demonstrate a thematic focus on translating literary and philosophical concepts into visual media. Stern's practice synthesizes classical techniques like chiaroscuro with contemporary critiques of desirability and cultural exclusion, particularly through a queer lens.

The artist's work engages with translation across multiple dimensions: between media (painting, sculpture, and photography), languages (Oscar Wilde's Salome and Voltaire's Candide), and societal frameworks (fatphobia and kitsch materiality). This approach creates liminal spaces that interrogate the viewer's role in perpetuating or challenging visual norms.

While no scientific awards are explicitly documented in the provided texts, Stern's exhibitions at venues like A Hug From The Art World and Ortega y Gasset Projects, along with critical essays in publications like Matte Editions, establish her influence in contemporary visual arts discourse.

Rachel Stern maintains an active studio practice and curatorial engagement, demonstrated through her 2020 solo exhibition This Terrestrial Paradise which examined post-pandemic proactivity through allegorical garden imagery. Her work continues to evolve through new projects like Pavilion for Pygmalion (2025), which reclaims classical myths through queer perspectives.