Rebecca Reeves

Rebecca Reeves is a mixed media artist whose work explores grief, memory, and the fragile boundary between life and decay. Drawing on Victorian mourning traditions, spiritualism, and superstition, she creates intricate hand-beaded sculptures — often flowers and birds she describes as “beaded taxidermy” — that evoke both preservation and loss. Influenced early on by her great-grandmother’s beadwork, as well as her grandparents’ love of gardening and birds, Reeves approaches her practice as a means of holding onto personal histories. In recent work, her forms become increasingly deconstructed: once-vibrant beaded arrangements give way to skeletal wire structures, with beads thinning and clinging delicately to their frames. Through this process of fragmentation and deterioration, she reflects on the ways identity shifts in the wake of loss, and on grief as an ongoing, cyclical experience rather than a fixed set of stages. Her work offers a quiet, contemplative space where mourning, love, and remembrance coexist.

Born and raised in Bucks County, Reeves lives and works in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University, both with a focus in fiber. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at Arch Enemy Arts and the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts in Pennsylvania; the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts; the Morbid Anatomy Museum and Last Rites/Booth Gallery in New York; the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Art Museum and Port Angeles Fine Arts Center in Washington; and Rockford University Art Gallery/Clark Arts Center in Illinois, among other venues.