From Erin Cluley Gallery:

"Rachel Livedalen’s work considers representations of femininity throughout the aesthetics of pop culture, consumer products, and the art historic canon. Often juxtaposing academic texts and objects from art history with marks inspired by representations of contemporary “girl” culture, the artist combines two realms that are often kept strictly separate due to society’s hierarchal perception of importance. By referencing this historic visual imagery alongside the cultural ephemera from her adolescence (such as stickers, makeup palettes, ephemeral trinkets, or doodle-like drawings), she shifts the focus of a previously male-centric field while simultaneously questioning the role of privilege in how arbitrary value is assigned.

Rachel Livedalen’s practice, strongly influenced by the printmaking discipline, uses a combination of process-based methods of making, such as screenprinting, stenciling, and airbrushing. Relying heavily on printed imagery, the artist investigates the universality and socialist nature of reproduceable images while acknowledging its function within consumerism culture. Livedalen’s subversion of this imagery also serves as a self-consideration of how she consumes and desires this imagery knowing it is steeped in gender stereotypes and therefore perpetuates a narrow view of femininity.

Through grids, catalogs, or book indices and notations, her newer work also explores the organizational structures frequently used to understand complex ideas like history, art, and notions of beauty. These referenced structures mirror their real-world counterpart’s tendency to hold a misleading sense of order and an unfulfilled attempt to find understanding.

THE CHORUS will feature a suite of new paintings to be accompanied by a display of artist books. Two of the books are digitally printed and editioned for wider distribution, while one is handmade by the artist."