Rachel Farmer is a ceramic artist who was raised in Utah. Their work explores their Mormon pioneer ancestry, as well as larger mythologies of the western United States, hidden LGBT and women’s histories, and our contemporary relationship to the western landscape. Farmer is interested in a series of interrelated questions such as, “What gets passed down through generations?” and “What is memorialized and what is left behind or willfully forgotten?”
At MAD, Farmer will continue working on their series of figurines depicting pioneer women in action. They are small, delicate and playful anti-monuments of sorts in contrast to the bronze, somber pioneer statues Farmer grew up around. These figurines function as both stand-alone sculptures and subjects in a series of photos and videos shot out West.
Farmer received their BFA from Brigham Young University and their MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They currently teach at several museums and exhibit regularly in New York and nationally. For more information please visit their website: www.rachelfarmer.com.
