b. Berlin, NH
Rachelle Beaudoin is an artist who uses video, wearables, and performance to explore feminist identity within popular culture. She attended the College of the Holy Cross and holds a Master’s degree in Digital+Media from Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions, Welcome to the Bob House, at 3SArtspace in Portsmouth, NH, 2016 and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Internet at the Magenta Suite, Exeter, NH 2019. She was an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO 2013. She was a Fulbright Core Scholar artist-in-residence at quartier21 in Vienna, Austria in 2014. In 2015, she was a Clowes Fund Fellow at Vermont Studio Center. In 2019, she was an artist-in-residence at Canterbury Shaker Village, Canterbury, NH.
She recently curated the exhibition, Always Be Around: Corita Kent, Community and Pedagogy, at the Cantor Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross, featuring the work of artist, educator and social justice advocate Corita Kent and eleven contemporary artists including Lee Walton, Christine Sun Kim and Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Rachelle lives in New Hampshire and teaches at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.
“The works in this series are the result of a workshop on Generative College taught by Chelly Jin. Reflecting on the influence of social media on self-care and self-image, I interact with influencers and try to mimic them. In Blush Blind, my view is obscured by the video so I cannot exactly recreate the layering she is doing and can never really match up. In Algorithmic Workout, I try to keep up with the movements as new videos are randomly displayed based on my movements. Using the now ubiquitous language of “the journey,” I complete a skincare routine equating it to Joseph Campbell’s, “The Hero’s Journey” as images from social media posts accumulate on the screen. The piece Ultimate Uplifting Facial Roller, similarly uses the tools of self-care fashioned into something strange and disconcerting. By multiplying the rollers, the device alludes to ideas of optimization while actually becoming less functional.”
Q. If you could offer your younger self any advice at the start of your artistic career, what would it be?”
A. “RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
RULE TWO: General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
RULE TEN: We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything—it might come in handy later.
From Corita Kent and Jan Steward, Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit and Immaculate Heart College Art Department
designed by David Mekelburg, ca. 1967
Corita Collection, courtesy of Corita Art Center.”