Rebekka Federle was raised in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. Living near the lake in Chicago, she was exposed to all the museums and art a girl could handle. She traveled often, splitting her vacation time between her father’s family in Maine, and her mother’s in Hungary. Her talents have been developed in part by her father's love of German expressionist cinema and her mother’s sense of design.
Throughout her school career she took art classes, and while living in Budapest, skipped school often to explore the city, it’s galleries and public art. She managed to get herself a job as a studio assistant to Chicago-based artist Tony Fitzpatrick. Here she was trained to have an attention to detail and a work ethic that most young people do not understand. With these skills she constructs her little pieces, creating a narrative that is abstract enough for in-depth viewer participation, but that holds elements of mythological stories and old country folk tales. She uses materials that are vintage enough to be uncommon but that still posses a level of familiarity. Her pieces evoke a sort of magic realism and often convey a certain dream-like quality. Like a dream however, she leaves the viewer with the task of deciding whether the narrative takes a turn for the better or for the worse.