Bio

Christine Rabenold is a Chicago-based artist and an associate professor of Art at North Central College, where she served as the Coordinator of the Art Department from 2013-2017 and as the Chair of Art and Design from 2017-2022. Additionally, she served as the Student Gallery Director from 2009 until 2019.  She teaches a variety of courses in ceramics, sculpture, three-dimensional design, advanced studies, and senior planning and exhibition capstone, and co-led a December Abroad Seminar Course, Art and Memory in Italy with Classics professor Michael de Brauw from 2014-2018.  Christine received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Tyler School of Art/Temple University and a Master of Fine Arts degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She was born in Lehighton, Pennsylvania.

Artist Statement

My artwork comments on, if not examines aspects of memory, identity, class, and environmental issues.  Important questions about how we remember, what we choose to forget, how authentic these memories are, and why memory connects to one’s topographical environment are considerations in the work.  In a world increasingly reliant on digital navigational maps, technology, and position and the psychological impact on oneself and reflection, what does it mean to create a visual map of memory that is based on the shifting narratives of personal associations with location?

A common practice is a connection of memory to objects and the use of the casting process.  One interesting idea about the replication of objects through the casting process is the displacement of the real object and its simulacra. The casting process enables the memory of the original object to carry through but simultaneously competes with the original object’s authenticity and authorship. As an object maker, I am captivated by the notion of objects alluding to memories and the participatory dialogue that can evolve with the viewers.  By the activity of making and casting a variety of objects can the banal/everyday become special but inextricably universal?  Does this transform or elevate the everyday? And could this action function in reverse with a unique or significant object?