Rachel Feinstein ’89 has returned home. The Ransom Everglades alumna just opened her new show, “The Miami Years,” at the Bass Museum in Miami Beach. “The Miami Years” captures almost three decades of Feinstein’s work, taking us back into her childhood memories.
Feinstein has collaborated with Marc Jacobs, has been featured in notable publications including Vogue Magazine, and has had her sculptures displayed in Florence amongst masters like Donatello.
The contemporary artist specializes in sculpture and is famous for her fantasy-inspired pieces like “The Snow Queen,” which was inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
As soon as I entered the exhibit, I was surrounded by wallpaper of banyan trees which transported me to Old Cutler Road. The dark, fantastical wallpaper comes from a childhood memory of Feinstein’s early years living in Miami.
“Art has always been my absolute life,” Feinstein told me. “I know I would not be the artist I am today if I did not grow up here, in Miami.”
In Feinstein’s view, Miami lacked culture for a metropolitan city in the 1980s. It did not have museums or a noted ballet company like it does now. But this lack of artistic culture, to Feinstein, meant that she could express herself authentically since there weren’t rigid expectations defining how an artist should express themselves. And her time at Ransom Everglades inspired her to follow her creative passion.
“Mr. Siegal, who was my art teacher at RE, and Mr. Dan Bowden—those two people were very important to my understanding that I was an artist,” Feinstein said. “They identified that in me before I really did. And they made sure that I got what I needed to kind of keep making my thing happen.”
Feinstein described growing up in Miami during the ’80s as a free time that lacked structure. “You could kind of do whatever you wanted,” she said. “My parents would let me go out during the school night and I would go to nightclubs on Miami Beach with a bunch of male models who were in the Calvin Klein ‘Obsession’ ad with Bruce Weber. It was wild. I would go skinny dipping with them off of South Beach, and all of our clothes would get stolen. It was incredible.”
Feinstein’s teenage years were not all parties, though. After RE, the artist attended Columbia University, where she pursued her career as an artist. “New York is all in your brain and Miami is all about your body,” she said.
“The Miami Years” is heavily inspired by South Florida’s unique ecosystem. Miami’s lush vegetation is visible in several of the show’s pieces. Feinstein comments that “New York is a pretty intense place, it does not have the fantasy side… Miami is about this crazy jungle that is always trying to come in and New York has no nature.”
As she gave me a tour of the exhibition, Feinstein shared her specific inspirations for each piece. The show is rooted in memories from her time as a young girl, and even her wedding to her artist husband, John Currin, which took place at the original Parrot Jungle.
Feinstein described herself as more of a sculptural artist, but “The Miami Years” has paintings, sculptures, and even video.
“ ‘The Miami Years’ is actually the term James Voorhies, the curator, came up with,” Feinstein said. “He is finding artists that no one really knows has connections to Miami, and so for me, the title has to do with my childhood. “The Miami Years” is my childhood. It’s the beginning of understanding my own self, and aesthetic, and who I am–and what means something to me.”
Those memories make this show special for Feinstein. “The Miami Years” includes a new site-specific commision called “Panorama of Miami” (2024), an installation of painted mirrored wall panels spanning thirty feet in length. Feinstein included key Miami landmarks like Vizcaya, the Miami Seaquarium, Parrot Jungle, The Serpentarium, The Biltmore Hotel, and The Bass Museum, among other locations which are near and dear to her heart. She explained, “I have never made a show that is strictly about my childhood. Childhood is always referenced through my art, and you can feel that it’s about Miami, but all of these works are very different. The thing that links them all together is my Miami childhood.”
At the end of the tour, Feinstein revealed how meaningful it has been to share her childhood through her work. “I have lost most of my mascara because I have been crying today. It’s a very emotional experience. I’ve done shows all over the world and its never felt like this,” she said.
Feinstein hopes that this show, like all her art, unites people. “We’re having hunger, pain, loss, joy, just like people had ten years ago, just like people two hundred years ago. I’m really hoping, since our world is so divided right now, that art in general helps people get along.”
