Rochelle Feinstein’s painting practice is deeply informed by the lexicon of abstraction as much as it responds to contemporary culture, and frequently, her own body of work. Geometric forms—the modernist trope of the grid is a regular presence—and vibrant chroma become tools to explore notions of artistic value and production, societal structures, and feminist idioms. Her working process is constantly reevaluating the medium’s potential, constraint, and rudimentary premises, for possibilities of expansion and reorganization. Among her numerous accolades, she is a recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize Jules Guerin Fellowship in Visual Arts.
She has had four retrospective exhibitions (2016-2019), unfold throughout Europe and the US. She has had a six-venue, international exhibition, "You Again”, appear simultaneously at Campoli Presti (Paris), Bridget Donahue (NYC), Hannah Hoffman (LA), Nina Johnson (MIami), Candice Madey (NYC), and Galerie Francesca Pia (Zurich). A major survey exhibition of Feinstein’s work originated at the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva in 2016 and subsequently traveled to Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Other solo exhibitions have taken place at Kunsthaus Baselland and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Her work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial and in exhibitions at such venues as the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PS1 in New York, and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin. Her work is in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, the Perez Art Museum in Miami, and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.
Shortly before arriving to MacDowell in 2023, she learned that an installation, "Somewhereville" (2018), a work originally shown at Studioli (Rome), would be reinstalled at Basel Social Club in early June. She expanded upon this work at MacDowell with a group of 12 hand-colored Polaroid photographs, "Somewhereville, NH", images taken of the woods outside her studio. She then added another element, a limited-edition silkscreen print made via What's App and Dropbox, with Orme Atelier (Rome). After a two-year schedule of exhibitions, Feinstein's intention for her was residency to contemplate how three distinct subject matters could take form through different materialities. Painting on unstretched, low-quality dropcloths, drawing, and large-scale silkscreens on muslin, she produced a substantial group of works that have become the springboard for an expansive project to be completed in the coming months.
