Rae Maxwell-Ross
Co-founder
They | Them | Theirs
Oakland, CA | Occupying the unceded land of the Chochenyo Ohlone peoples
Artist Statement
My work is heavily influenced by my childhood experience of the vicious circle of mental illness and trauma. Growing up watching my mother’s struggle with schizophrenia, I became keenly aware of how society views neurodivergent people. When I was removed from her care I learned how the stigma extends to foster children, and how that stigma mingles with the rootlessness of constantly moving between homes to impart another generation of trauma.
As an adult living with my own anxiety disorder, I find that discussions of mental illness and the traumatic systems built to contain and make it orderly are either infantilizing or sensationalized-- if they happen at all. It is this fact which my work addresses, exploring themes such as grief, stigma, and denial.
My work is about the stories we tell, and who tells those stories; the stories told about us versus the stories we have to tell about ourselves; and the stories that should be there but are not. I employ sculpture and installation to create a space in which these intangible and too-often ignored stories are a physical presence to be reckoned with. In some cases I use audio and social practice techniques to present a narrative, whether mine or another’s, in
the teller’s own voice; in others, the physical work alone stands witness to the invisible history which gives it meaning.
| Image Description: Rae Maxwell-Ross, a non-binary artist with short rainbow dyed hair and rectangular glasses. They hold a large spiderweb-like artwork over the left side of their face as they look directly into the camera. |
Artist Bio
Rae Maxwell-Ross, also known as RMR, is an interdisciplinary artist who utilizes sculpture, installation, audio & video, and social practice to explore themes such as mental illness, foster care, and the social stigma which surrounds both.
Growing up with a schizophrenic mother in Minnesota, they moved frequently and were in and out of foster care throughout their early childhood. At the age of nine, they moved to Augusta, Georgia to live with their father, with whom they had a rocky relationship until they moved out at the age of 15. They moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of 19. Throughout all of these transitions, RMR maintained a persistent but informal interest in art. However, it wasn’t until they were able to return to school at the age of 28 that they were able to seriously pursue their art.
They draw upon this history and the lasting impact it has on their adult life in creating their work. Their pieces present intimate personal narratives of themself and others living with mental illness and its consequences, contextualizing and underscoring these audio narratives with emotionally evocative abstract visuals, objects, and spaces.
RMR received their BFA from the University of California at Berkeley, receiving special recognition for their work in social practice and sculptural installation. Their work has been shown at the Berkeley Art Museum and at Artist’s Television Access in San Francisco. Their ongoing Statistics series has been showcased by Berkeley Arts+Design in their book Made at Berkeley vol III.
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