Untitled (Ghost Hand), 2015, Medical Ephemera, resin, 13 x 13 x 13 inches. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist.

 

Rain Lucien Matheke lives with a primary immune deficiency disease (XLA), which requires regular infusions of IVIG. Thus, the presence of the medical touch in Untitled (Ghost Hand) makes visible the life-saving process she experiences on a monthly basis. Visibility of illness is paramount to her practice, as is the tension it signifies between preservation and decay. Matheke writes: “The destructive, contemplative, and repetitive processes used to make [my] work examine struggles between death and preservation as well as acceptance and control, in an effort to establish a sense of permanence in a decaying body.”

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Rain Lucien Matheke is a gender fluid, Los Angeles based artist living with a primary immune deficiency disease (XLA), which requires monthly infusions of IVIG. Documentation of this process is a huge part of Rain’s practice. She received a Master’s Degree in Visual Art from California State University, Northridge in 2016 and has exhibited and performed throughout Southern California. Her work is interdisciplinary and is largely about decay and mortality. She seeks to give visibility to invisible illness. The destructive, contemplative, and repetitive processes used to make her work examine struggles between death and preservation as well as acceptance and control, in an effort to establish a sense of permanence in a decaying body. Illness comprises much of life. Rain’s practice embraces and celebrates the seemingly futile pursuit of the preservation of life and the fragility of the body.