statement

I have always loved drawings. Abstract drawings, especially. Consider that abstract drawings are analogous to prospecting for surprises. What could be more irresistible? As one who draws abstract forms, I like the directness and intrigue that beckons the moment hand and tool touch the surface. It is certainly an intrepid traipsing through the vault of formal abstract language.

Aside from exemplifying what is possible, drawing is fun. From the delight of the doodle to the mighty power of line to densities of pigment, the endeavor of drawing is a response to compositional contingencies in fluidity and flexibility. That one can court the interchangeability of form and void with the optical characteristics of material is a challenging negotiation. Take marks for starters. From delicate, velvety wisps to raspy mottled and modulated striations to precise mathematical linearity, marks catalog an evolving dimensionality in the rendering of space. Whether visually separating one discrete form from another or layering on heaps of pattern, a drawing can be repurposed and reformed to introduce divergent scale shifts. Careful looking animates new stories of saturation and legibility. A single object, minute or large amidst emptiness and fullness is but one eccentric recurring theme of drawing. I am all for exploration. No risk, no fun.

Drawing for me is a sort of kerfuffle and one in which the physicality of excavation begins at the threshold of thinking and drawing blind. Then follows looking, then choosing what shapes to re-arrange in order to create tension or how to lose it. Here it is, a reaching in, to that strange, electric encounter between hand and object.  There are no rules or regulations. This is the alchemy of interrelation that has yet to be articulated.

When I venture in, my exploration is always new.  Par for the course, there is endeavor and conflict. A dealing with the straight fact of line, the construction of composition and all these actions that disassemble, reassemble, noodle, wrangle, retool, it takes moxie. When you have moxie you need the tools to match.

Here I must make note of my loyal commentators; pencils, fingers, stump, erasers, dirt, pastel. The materials list, without finish. With kind thanks to the paper which I often scrub in the sink, only to be bathed in pigment again, wash, sand, score, tear and draw. It is an unceremonious chamber of uncertainties that blank piece of paper to which I headlong add logic and error. However, I do find that logic and error make vibrant partners.

Whether it is a willfully minimal haiku or complex knot of pattern, each drawing is a foreign land. I trawl for strategy amidst the great vacant estate of the paper. I wander over a granular pastel garden advancing and retreating color molecules. Over and over, I multiply the lines and by turn of an eraser, sublimate them. Or, evaporate them. Every scratch forward becomes a new clearing and a new constraint. The surface can look like powdered embroidery. All hands on deck!

bio

born: 1957, Palo Alto, California

education

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA : MFA, 1996
University of South Carolina : BFA, 1991

selected awards/honors

Marion Mendes Award for Works on Paper, National Association of Women Artists, NY, NY, 2011
Florence and Irwin Zlowe Award for Works on Paper, National Association of Woman Artists, NY, NY 2011
Sally Jacobs/Phoebe Towbin Annual Award for Excellence, Woodstock Museum of Art, Woodstock, NY, 2008
Helen Gilkey Award for Best in Show, Woodstock Museum of Art, Woodstock, NY, 2007

selected publications

Art Times Journal, CSS Publications, Inc., Mount Marion, NY: "The Drawing Galaxy", Essay by Meredith Rosier,: April, 2013
Fifth Floor Foundation, " About Drawing", New York, New York: www.aboutdrawing.org, 2013
Woodstock Times, Ulster Publications, Kingston, NY: "Rosier's Abstractions", p.12, July 12, 2012
Woodstock Times, Ulster Publications, Kingston, NY: "Coming up Rosier", p.28, August 20, 2009

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Chace-Randall Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Andes, NY, 2011
Chace-Randall Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Andes, NY, 2010
Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, Solo Exhibition, Woodstock, NY, 2001
Tanja Flandria Gallerie, Solo Exhibition, Tangier, Morocco, 1999

selected group shows

WAAM@NAWA: National Association of Women Artists, NY, NY, 2013
Morphogenesis: 310 Art Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina, 2013
Ev(e)olution: Riverside Gallery, Lincoln Center, NY, NY, 2013
Procidamerica: Il Senso di Luogo ( A Sense of Place ), Procida, Italy, 2013