Rachelle Rojany: pplanes

From prehistoric stone cairns to the Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft, efforts to communicate are an essential part of being human.  We share information, provide signposts, grasp for contact—all profoundly optimistic endeavors that affirm we are not alone.  Rachelle Rojany’s new works add her voice to this deeply human enterprise.  The pplanes are intimate and mysterious, quiet.  They seem outside of time, and like they’ve endured a time.  


The artworks themselves are elusive to categorize.  Pieces of painted copper foil float over color fields of linen.  Some text is visible but it’s mostly indecipherable.  Collapsed steles or scraps of ancient scrolls come to mind. The pplanes are folded as paper airplanes—objects that figuratively carry messages into the world, sailing outward on air currents just as breaths and spoken language drift into space.  Worn creases, cut up fragments, and weathered paint make it clear that time is a material component here, but vibrant colors and sharp geometry situate them in the present.


There is a recurring symbol throughout this body of work, an invented glyph that begins to feel familiar, yet remains out of reach.  Its repetition provides a natural scaffolding for the geometric planes of color.  Similar to certain pieces by James Lee Byars and Hermann Nitsch, or Ana Mendieta, the phenomenological link to religious symbols, artifacts, and rituals is central to these works.  Like our ancestors, we still stack stones so others will know the way.  Similarly, Rojany’s pplanes radiate a slow, confident energy.  They project goodwill, an impulse to give and connect rather than retract.   


Coinciding with our exhibition in Los Angeles, Rojany has a new public artwork on view in New Mexico, a billboard ode to the wind, all the winds breath.  It will be up from August 2025 to August 2026 at The Unexplained Beacon.  She has had past solo exhibitions in Los Angeles at JOAN, Commonwealth and Council, The Impermanent Collection, and The Happy Lion, and has participated in local group shows at Pio Pico, Foyer-LA, The Magic Hour, FOCA, Ochi Projects, Ooga Booga, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Chapman University, Claremont Graduate University, and more.  Rojany studied at School of the Art Institute of Chicago; UC Berkeley; the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, Italy; University of Bologna, Italy; and the University for Foreigners, Siena, Italy.