Rebecca Tennenbaum (b. 1990, New York, NY, she/her) is an artist and educator working in Philadelphia, PA. Tennenbaum received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and her MAT in Visual Arts Education and BFA in Painting & Drawing at The University of the Arts. She loves cooking, nature, and her dog, Kermie.
I question the position of the individual in constructing the frameworks around decisions. I’m interested in Heuristics; mental shortcuts an individual develops from past experiences to make decisions quickly and effectively. Despite all the systems humans exist within and the objects societies interface with, we are fundamentally held by the cycles of nature. The continuous unfolding of time as demonstrated by the ocean, land, and sky only further highlight the absurdity of determining our behavioral patterns and choices. The sun sets every evening through the back-room window regardless of when my phone recognizes the change in brightness, it rises to wake me although my alarm hasn’t rung. This connective tissue of rhythms occurring within each other offers a liberation, ease, and contrast which I translate visually.
My work exists within decision-making processes or psychological landscapes. Grids, repetitive form, contradictions of visual perspectives and color relationships are measures for re-grounding. I’m interested in an endless returning: we repeatedly begin again, holding multiple perspectives in the present.