FSU Art BFA ’09 Rachel Rossin is regarded as a pioneer in utilizing virtual reality as an artistic medium, and is known for manipulating digital technology to create immersive environments. In her work, Rossin often aims to define new experiences regarding transcendence and perception. She works by blending the worlds of painting and digital media by using game-engine physics, procedural programming and traditional oil painting and airbrush to create virtual reality installations, paintings, and sculptures. In October 0f 2019, Rossin was recognized as a Notable Nole for her significant contributions to her profession as an Artist.
Jeffrey Grunthaner, artist and curator, elaborates upon the details and underlying narrative of Rossin’s intriguing work in his recent review of her upcoming show; her second solo exhibition at 14a Gallery in Hamburg, Germany, which opened Friday, September 4, 2020, and runs through October 15, 2020. He writes, ““In the context of Rachel Rossin’s storied installation, the figure of the sentinel takes on a mechanistic, but still organic character. Focusing on sentinel species, the installation reframes a ser ies of traumas, which environ the viewer like monstrous silhouettes projected from a magic lantern. Meeps of birdsong document Rossin’s process of teaching canaries to mimic dubstep; rose petals scattered on the floor take on an hallucinating aspect—ghostlike and alarming despite their softness.” Additionally, he describes Rossin’s process as an intense merging of imagery and science to the extent that it involves “training canaries to assimilate new sounds into their repertoires,” and engagement with “an AI version of herself to develop holograms and paintings,” based on various images—some of which date back to her life as a child. Grunthaner likens the exhibition to “a virtual landscape squeezed from a tube [in which] hardware in-jokes pervade the exhibition. The dichotomy of soft and hard, human and machine, cuteness and horror corresponds to the divide between cognitive and emotional space looped on video,” culminating with the “hopeful note that traumas can be refashioned.” Click here for Jeffrey Gunthaner’s full review.
Since graduating from Florida State University in 2009, Rossin has shown artwork in solo exhibitions in New York as well as in museums in Basel, Riga, Istanbul, and Helsinki. She has garnered attention from publications such as Forbes, National Geographic, and Art Forum for her multi-media and installation art and in 2017, she was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in the category of Arts and Style. Rossin was a fellow in virtual reality research and development at the New Museum’s NEW INC in 2015.