Artist Statement

I work in a variety of materials: paint, pixels, photographs, fabric, wax, clay. What stays constant across all of them is line. Line is the same gesture whether it’s a pencil mark, a seam, or a score. It’s also the metaphor I keep returning to. A line marks where one thing ends and another begins. It can also be the connection between them. My first name, Rebecca, translates roughly to “a cord that binds,” which is fitting. Line has been the constant of my life since before I had a word for it.

My work has taken different forms over the years: temporary installations and permanent artworks, public pieces and private ones. A fixed object asks to be encountered again and again. A temporary installation asks to be experienced once, completely, and carried by whoever was present. Two of my installations, The Act of Stillness and Untangled, taught me about how we experience and connect. Strangers slowed down and responded to the same thing at the same time and shared their experience with one another. That shared response is its own kind of common ground. I’ve come to think it’s what art does best, whether the piece lasts a day or fifty years.

I don’t think of this as a completed practice. Each medium I’ve worked in leaves something behind that shows up in the next: a mark, a technique, a way of seeing. Line is still where everything starts. Even the cursor on this website draws one.