Rachel Fein-Smolinski is an artist who works in photography, video, and installation. She was raised in Buffalo, NY and holds a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the San Francisco Art Institute and an M.F.A. in Art Photography from Syracuse University. Her work uses sci-fi and adopts the authoritative aesthetics of biology and medicine to deal with courage and pain through the saving graces of neurosis and intellectualism. Fein-Smolinski has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and publications, including the 2019 Visual Studies Workshop residency, Duke University’s Archive of Documentary Arts and History of Medicine’s Research grant, 2018 Wynn Newhouse Award for Artists of Excellence with Disabilitites, the Silver Eye Center for Photography’s Fellowship 19 International Award Honorable Mention, the 2018 John Chervinsky Memorial Fellowship, the 2016 Constance Saltonstall Fellowship in Ithaca, New York and the Berlin Fall Semester Residency at Haubrok Foundation. She has been published in Oranbeg Press, and Photo Emphasis. Her most recent video Referred Pain was shown in the Video in America exhibition at The Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY and SPACES in Cleveland, OH. She has shown at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery, and has forthcoming exhibitions with the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, and Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. Fein-Smolinski is currently a Photography Lecturer in The School of Art + Design at The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.