Rachel Rose: Lake Valley

About

Lake Valley (2016), is a cel animated video set in an imagined suburb. Each frame is a composite of elements from 19th-20th century children’s book illustrations cut, layered, and re-mapped for the present-day.

The suburban places encountered in the video—the house, the parking lot, the park—are familiar and not. There is simultaneity of past and present in all surfaces of the video—a plastic garbage bag is an illustration of a woman’s hair; an egg shell is an amalgam of dragon skin, cobble stones, and beer.

The story of Lake Valley follows an imagined pet as it seeks attention on one particularly lonely day. The pet leaves its family in search of connection in the nearby green. The narrative is rooted in the theme of abandonment that permeates childhood in children’s literature. Abandonment, like a suburban house, is relatively ordinary experience sustained by everyday routines and anxieties.

Rachel Rose (b.1986) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: Everything and More, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); Palisades, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London (2015); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2016); Interiors, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2015). Forthcoming group exhibitions include: The Infinite Mix, Hayward Gallery, London (2016); São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo (2016); Okayama Art Summit, Okayama (2016). Forthcoming solo exhibitions include: Serralves Museum, Porto (2016); and Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz (2017).