My name is Rebecca Arp, and I am a lesbian interdisciplinary artist concerned with spirituality, ritual, religion, emotion, and memory as seen through the lens of my experience as a queer woman raised in the rural Midwest United States. I often use materials and motifs associated with the family, the home, and the church—as well as barriers and filters to acceptance in those structures. I am interested in constructing compositions that invert the traditionally hard and soft; exploring the nuances of interpersonal relationships and relationship to the self; and capturing the quotidian with sincerity that lends to broad application.

Inspired by artists such as Linda Montano, Tracey Emin, and Ragnar Kjartansson, my work finds footing in moments where I feel art and life merge. I often utilize a "domestic" visual language that moves from the heart of the house, to the skin of it, to the local climate it weathers, to the wider environment. Recurring motifs include interior objects: tables, chairs, candles, tools, quilts, beds; perimeter objects: doors, windows, gates, fences; and exterior objects: plants and animals of all kinds, weather, sky, planets, stars. At the same time, there is an important undercurrent of mysticism and storytelling that flows through these three spaces, and acts as a thread that ties the individual components of my practice together.

Rebecca Arp (’97, USA) recieved her BA from Vanderbilt University in 2020, where she was awarded the Margaret Stonewall Hamblet Award Grant. She has since attended two residency programs in Berlin, Germany, and held her first solo show there in July 2021. In January 2022, she completed the grant program, which culminated in a solo show at Vanderbilt University’s Space 204 Gallery. She currently works out of her home studio in Columbus, OH and is applying to MFA programs domestically and abroad.

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