Rachel Stern in collaboration with James Lyman - Gold Portrait (Rachel), 2013

At the intersection of beauty and power I turn to tableaux and the proscenium creating dialogue between the histories and applications of kitsch and leftist aesthetic. My work de-canonizes and reframes the tropes of an expanded visual culture through a critical, kitsch, queer-washed lens. My photographs display fugitive moments where the allegorical and the specific collide through the employment of simple tricks of the camera. Employing mass-production, industrialized agricultural, and disposable decor—the trappings of the capital and its efforts to exploit us—I construct temporary worlds for the camera’s vantage. I translate, twist, and tease these objects and my sitters, coaxing them into the space of theater where suspended disbelief allows earnest discussion. I use these photographs in concert with photographic wallpaper, sculpture, video and architectural elements to create immersive photo-based installation. These spaces encompass the viewer and serve to push at the confusions between “real and fake” at the heart of the photographic question.