Rachelle Reichert: Li-ion

Rachelle Reichert is a visual artist and art educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California (Chochenyo Ohlone territory). She received her BFA from Boston University in 2007 and her MFA from Mills College and 2015. She creates drawings and sculptures to explore social and ecological concerns caused by technology. Rachelle has presented her artwork at the California Climate Change Symposium, the San Francisco State of the Estuary Conference, the American Geophysical Union Meeting and has been granted a Research Ambassadorship from Planet Labs to create anthropocentric climate-related artwork. Her work has been reviewed and published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Make: Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler and New American Paintings and she has completed permanent commissions at the Ritz Mandarin Oriental in Madrid, Spain and Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.

Li-ion is a series of photo-realistic drawings and ceramic sculptures inspired by three global lithium ponds impacted by technology: in the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, Silver Peak, Nevada, and the Mojave Desert. Reichert tracked each site with earth imaging satellites, then rendered photo-realistic drawings from these images to make private images publicly accessible. In the act of drawing, she raised questions on current ways of seeing landscape through contemporary mapping technologies. She also dug clay, a natural companion of lithium, at the Nevada site, and molded it over lithium salt rocks to create abstract sculptures.

• CAE1001: Lucy Raven: China Town
• CAE1216: Dennis Parks: International Ceramics
• CAE2004: Lee Saloutos: Nevada Mines