Rachel Mica Weiss

Rachel Mica Weiss’s practice examines how systems of containment, protection, and control are materially constructed and psychologically internalized. Working across sculpture and fiber, Weiss investigates the relationship between bodies and the structures that organize them—whether architectural, symbolic, or emotional. Hand-strung thread installations form diaphanous planes that divide, filter, and reshape space, functioning simultaneously as barriers and portals. Mimicking the warping of a loom, these works confront viewers with an unexpected structural tension while framing shifting perceptual experiences through layered surfaces that oscillate between object, architecture, and optical phenomenon.

Though not literally woven, the overlapping threads create the illusion of a textile matrix. Constructed through systems of mathematical permutations, individual threads cross through the center of each frame to gradually build saturated bands of color, density, and dimensionality. Through accumulation and repetition, Weiss transforms a single linear thread into a taut two-dimensional plane and, ultimately, into an undulating sculptural surface. Subtle shifts in color produce gradients that appear painted yet remain entirely constructed through tension and thread, allowing viewers to perceive both the precision of the system and the vulnerability of the material held within it. Like drawn lines accumulating into an image, each thread contributes to a larger structure that simultaneously contains and reveals space.

In parallel, Weiss’s sculptural works draw from forms associated with authority, protection, and control. Chainmail carved from alabaster cannot defend, a stone lock cannot secure, and jewelry weighted with keys becomes burden rather than adornment. Retaining the visual language of utility while failing to perform it, these objects expose protection as conditional and reveal how systems of power are embedded within material form. Across carved stone and woven thread alike, Weiss reflects on processes of tension, erosion, compression, and gradual transformation, positioning the body within longer material and temporal cycles. Together, these intertwined practices form a sustained investigation into mediation, containment, and the unstable boundaries between protection and vulnerability.

Rachel Mica Weiss  earned a BA in psychology from Oberlin College and an MFA in sculpture from San Francisco Art Institute. She is the recipient of an Investing in Professional Artists Grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments (2020), as well as a Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship from San Francisco Foundation (2011). She has participated in residencies including Fountainhead Residency, Lux Art Institute, and Marble House Project, among others.

Weiss has created public artworks for venues worldwide, including the Art in Embassies at the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Airbnb in Seattle; and Pittsburgh International Airport. Recent commissions include The Wild Within for deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum and Boundless Topographies, her largest permanent installation to date, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and installed at the University of Washington’s Hans Rosling Center for Population Health.

Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including those of the Art in Embassies program, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, TIAA, Boston Consulting Group, MediaMath, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.