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Rosson Crow
Rosson Crow makes large-scale paintings of decadent interiors from a bygone era. Hotels, saloon bars and lounges loom large in the work, which is distinguished by a luscious palette and exuberant application of paint.
The spaces depicted in Crow’s work are of mythical or mythologized locations, devoid of people but with implications of recent habitation, as if capturing the moment after a party has ended. Her paintings are inspired by diverse references – Baroque and Rococo interior design, cowboy culture, Las Vegas architecture, theatre and music –their dominant scale pulling the viewer into the psychological space of the spectacle. The paintings oscillate between celebration and desolation, with extravagant ornate features appearing to collapse and drip across the pictorial plane. Night at the Palomino, 1984 (2007) describes a scene at the legendary Hollywood nightclub that, in its heyday, played host to artists such as Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson. In Crow’s envisioning of a place never visited, the stage is set, with guitars and banjo propped nearby and the lights are ablaze, while the dynamic perspective draws the spectator deep into the room. Koenig House (2007) features Case Study House #22, as immortalised in Julius Schulman’s iconic black and white photographs of the classic modernist building, this time rendered in vivid Technicolor. Live in the Black Pussy (2007) pays homage to artist Jason Rhodes’ eponymous installation that was housed in a vast warehouse near Crow’s studio in Los Angeles. The conglomeration of pagan objects, cowboy paraphernalia and pulsating neon shoot across the canvas, capturing the vigorous collision of signs and symbols in Rhodes’ original construction.
Rosson Crow was born in Dallas, Texas in 1982, and lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2004 and her MFA from Yale in 2006. Crow completed a residency at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2006 and has had solo exhibitions at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; CANADA, New York, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris.
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| Texas Crude 16 Jan—21 Feb 2009 | |
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