Rebecca Cummins explores the sculptural, experiential, and sometimes humorous possibilities of light and natural phenomena, often referencing the history of science and optics in installations that have included a machine for making rainbows, a photographic video rifle, paranoid dinner-table devices, fungi spore prints, microscopy - and a variety of sculptural and photographic approaches to marking time (including sun and moon dials). Most recently, she has been enlisting Harold “Doc” Edgerton’s strobotac. 

Cummins has exhibited widely internationally and is also active in public commissions and cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists, scientists and community partners.

Selected exhibitions include Experimental Encounters, Beal Center for Arts + Technology, University of California, Irvine, CA (2025); Gallery 4Culture, Seattle (2023); Still.Moving, Bellevue Art Museum Biennial 2021: Architecture & Urban Design, Bellevue, WA; Lux’Aeterna, Art Center Nabi @ Asia Culture Center, ISEA, Gwangju, South Korea (2019); Reticula, Concepción Arte y Ciencia Biennial, Concepción, Chile (2019); Biennial of Seville, Spain (2008); Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China (2008); Quay Art Gallery, Images Festival, Toronto (2006); 6th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Museum (2006); The Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, ISEA, Helsinki, Finland, 2004; the South Australia Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide (2002); and the traveling exhibition ILLUSION: Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (various locations 2013-2018).

Public commissions have been completed for the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (Seattle Public Utilities [Delridge] and the Seattle Public Library Montlake Branch); for the Washington State Arts Commission and Western Washington University [in Miller Hall] in collaboration with artist Paul DeMarinis; and the Exploratorium: Museum of Science, Art and Perception, San Francisco in collaboration with astro-physicist Woody Sullivan.

Selected artist residencies include PLAYA Art & Science Residency Program, Summer Lake, OR (2025); Two Dot Studios, Two Dot, MT. (2024); Ars Bioartica, Bioart Society, Kilpisjärvi Biological Station of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland (far north Lapland) (2021); Bundanon Trust, Nowra, NSW, Australia (2017); SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia (2015). Shenzhen Institute of Fine Art, Shenzhen, China (2008), Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA (2006); and Australia Council Residency in London, UK (1994).

Cummins has been faculty in the School of Art + Design + Art History since 2001, following 16 years at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, Australia. Her dissertation, Necro-Techno: Examples from an Archeology of Media, explores the history of media and contemporary artists who use archaic media devices in their artistic practice.