Rachel Mica Weiss (b. 1986, Rockville, MD) is a sculptor and installation artist whose practice spans fiber, stone, concrete, resin and acrylic. Drawing on her early training in weaving and her background in psychology, she examines architectural, topographical, and psychological boundaries through material transformation. 

Often scaled to the human body, her sculptures move between the visual language of textiles and the density of stone, testing the physical and conceptual limits of their materials. The resulting forms seem at odds with the functions their materials conventionally imply, inviting boundaries to be understood as permeable, contingent, and at times, fragile.

Weiss's Woven Screens series draws upon textiles' historical role in dividing and regulating space. Though the threads never intersect as woven cloth, their dense accumulation produces a seemingly impenetrable surface. Hand-strung in a process that recalls the warping of a loom, these diaphanous planes of tension confront the viewer with unexpected structural force, operating simultaneously as barrier to entry and threshold to a space beyond.. Each thread follows a system of mathematical permutations that gradually builds in density, allowing a one-dimensional line to expand into a taut plane and, ultimately, an undulating three-dimensional form.

In her stone sculptures, Weiss carves alabaster and marble into protective forms in chainmail and oversized chain necklaces weighted with locks and keys. While chainmail traditionally depends on the tensile strength of metal, Weiss renders the protective structure in stone, a material that would fracture rather than yield under impact. Drawing from forms associated with containment and authority, the resulting sculptures destabilize associations with protection and permanence, examining autonomy, confinement, and the fragile systems through which power is maintained. 

In the Folds series, cast concrete slabs scaled to the artist's body are twisted and pressed by hand into urethane rubber molds before curing, producing forms that fold and drape like fabric despite the rigidity of their material. Referencing a long history of figurative marble sculpture, and also reflecting geological processes—slow erosion, sustained pressure, incremental change—the works position the body within a longer material and temporal process. 

Across these series, Weiss consistently unsettles distinctions between the real and the simulated. Concrete resembles marble. Rigid forms appear supple. Structures associated with permanence become vulnerable. High and low materials collapse into one another until their distinctions begin to dissolve.

Rachel Mica Weiss (b. 1986, Rockville, MD; lives and works in Gardiner, NY) earned a BA in psychology from Oberlin College and an MFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent solo, two-person, and institutional exhibitions include YIELD at the Al Held Foundation, Boiceville, NY (2025); Cyclicalities at CARVALHO, New York (2024); Homespun at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY (2023); The Wild Within at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA (2020); and Objects of Desire at Below Grand, New York (2019). Her work has also been exhibited at Yossi Milo, Hesse Flatow, Asya Geisberg Gallery, and Nazarian / Curcio.

Weiss has completed numerous public commissions and permanent installations, including Vanishing Topographies for 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York (2025); Infinite Arches for the City of Oklahoma City (2023); and Boundless Topographies for the University of Washington's Hans Rosling Center for Population Health (2018), as well as projects for Google, Airbnb, Brookfield Properties, Pittsburgh International Airport, and the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

She is the recipient of grants from The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments, as well as the San Francisco Foundation's Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship. Her residencies include Fountainhead Residency, Lux Art Institute, 100W Corsicana, and Marble House Project. 

Weiss is represented by Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles and CARVALHO, New York.