Rachel Rose

Lake Valley

Rachel Rose creates video works that inventively combine collage, found footage, and repurposed materials. With Lake Valley, the artist uses imagery assembled from nineteenth and twentieth century children’s books to create cel animation.

The salvaged media, Rose explains, was used to render “objects that they wouldn’t ordinarily be on: maybe the floor is made of paper or a shirt is made of animal skin or spaghetti is made of someone’s hair.”

The sound editing of Lake Valley is similarly unexpected, as actions are accompanied by recognizable but strange sounds. The resulting film presents a sumptuous and transfixing storybook world that explores universal human fears and desires. Abandoned on a lonely day, an imagined, rabbit-like pet leaves its family’s suburban home in order to look for friendship in the ethereal land of a nearby forest. By balancing notions of tedium, adventure, abandonment, and companionship, Lake Valley immerses the viewer in a colorful world that tempers fantastic visuals with familiar emotions.