(1979, NL) lives and works in Berlin. De Joode earned her diploma in time-based art from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She was awarded the Deutsche Börse Residency at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt (2013) and the Sculpture Space residency (2012), as well as a residency at LMCC Governors Island (2013 – 2014) in New York. She has received funding from the Mondriaan fund, the Berliner Senat, the Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds and the Royal Dutch Embassy.
De Joode currently teaches materialzed photography at ECAL (École cantonale d'art de Lausanne).

POROSITY
Solo show at Christophe Gaillard Gallery in Paris (scenography by itsourplayground: Camille le Houezec & Joey Villemont)
October 10 2015 - January 9 2016
‘For if photography liberates the mass from its sculptural function, frees it from the heaviness of three-dimensional volume, it does not as a result liberate it from gravity. Moreover, the sculptures rest on pedestals and are not hung on the wall like photographic prints. The artist considers them ‘things,’ and, paraphrasing Heidegger, she states that ‘the word ‘thing’ names everything that is not simply nothing.’ The subtraction of that third dimension, in other words, does not mark a movement toward the immaterial; if ‘things’ orbit in the space of the gallery, they do so in the manner of celestial bodies or meteorites, and the viewer who circulates in the exhibition space is their witness.’

SOFT
Solo show at Annka Kultys Gallery
October 22 2020 - December 11 2020
SOFT marked my first solo show in London. On view were new paintings from the new ongoing series Sloppy Therapy.

Starting with a canvas, often a found canvas, I consciously try to forget everything I know about the canvas and instead try to explore the canvas as a simple object and appreciate it for its materiality. I work on the canvas in a sculptural way, the materials merge: paint is smeared, dripped or poured, the canvas itself is often cut, torn or crushed. Pigments, resin, glue or paint are pourn over or applied by hand. I try to achieve a dadaistic naivety that seeks to rejoice the canvas and its three-dimensional materiality.

Through the close-up, cropping and the abstract nature of the digitally reworked images, the finished paintings appear textured, so that the viewer is drawn to their apparent materiality and tactility.

The way we look at art has changed in the digital age. These works were created during the spring 2020 lockdown. A moment when we could often only gaze at art, alone, on our screens zooming and scrolling over textures.

THE MOLTEN INNER CORE
Solo show at Neumeister Bar-Am Gallery in Berlin
February 22 2014 - April 26 2014
‘This biological material, so to speak, forms the central motif for Rachel de Joode’s first solo exhibition in Europe. In “The Molten Inner Core,” de Joode organically links two- and three-dimensional media into a single web of interconnections. While flesh-colored sculptures, such as the works Sculpted Human Skin in Rock (I & II), 2014, jut boldly out of blocks of stone, and stand freely in the space like collages of cells, the print Achilles, 2014, becomes intimate, depicting a close-up image of the artist’s own ankle. Relations of scale between the various objects emerge as a central theme.
De Joode’s play on classical conventions of sculptural display reaches a high point in the installation White Pedestal Thing, 2013. Here, clay sculptures, serving as pedestals for small, skin-toned ceramic objects, seem, in their organic and bulky way, to be less static than they might first appear. Means of presentation, like pedestals and frames, come to the fore while withdrawing from their original functions—representation is more important than presentation.’

SOFT IN THE CENTRE
Solo show at Photoforum Pasquart, Bienne
July 2 2017 - September 3 2017
'The digital wasn’t and isn’t immaterial, as Felix Stalder explains in his book Kultur der Digitalität (The Culture of Digitality), published this year. The fleeting impulses of digital communication are based on material global infrastructures; they extend from mines deep under the earth’s surface, where rare-earth metals are extracted, into space, where satellites orbit the earth. As these connections are often inconspicuous in our everyday experiences, they are often ignored – but this doesn’t mean they disappear or become less significant. Digitality historically refers to new possibilities in the organisation and interconnection of different human and non-human actors. This is where Rachel de Joode’s approach overlaps with Stalder’s analysis: the term digitality isn’t limited to digital media, but also appears as a relational model within analogue contexts, and alters the realm of possibility of many materials and actors.' (text by director/curator Nadine Wietlisbach, from the press release)

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