Neon Beige Laura Rosengren
Neon Beige is a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Laura Rosengren.
This recent body of work explores hiddenness and home through the lens of the maternal. The paintings are rooms that one can peer into but not quite see. The crowded space of the interior is a soft place to hide – perhaps also a preserving, a pickling. But hiding, if correctly done, is embryonic. And it will open, become porous and permeate public.
Much of the research for this project has taken place in Rosengren’s home, using the physical actions and constraints of early motherhood to bring attention to how she makes paintings. The work is mapped by rapid calculations and measurements – the length of a TV show or nap, the space between meals and baths. The rhythms of making are shaped by the realities of caregiving, such as constant interruptions, and diverted attention.
Her process also incorporates domestic work, the repetitive labour of hands: scrubbing, stitching, grooming and washing as method for painting. Something is being done and undone and re-done, every day, and out of the apparent futility, something also continuous and forming. Transposing the performance and rituals of domestic labour into painting both highlights unseen work but also undermines painting’s legacy of masculinity with its heroic and solitary gestures.
Rosengren would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council for their support towards this project.
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Laura (she/her) is a Canadian artist, originally from Northwestern Ontario, currently living and working on Stó:lō territory in Chilliwack, BC. Her practice involves a mixed material approach to painting and considers questions around motherhood and labour. She is the recipient of 2022 project grants from Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, 2021 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and a finalist for the 2021 Salt Spring National Art Prize. Laura has a BFA from the Alberta University of the Art, and an MA from Regent College. Recent exhibitions include Spilt Milk Gallery Edinburgh, Scotland, CityScape Gallery, North Vancouver, BC, and Fort Gallery, Fort Langley, BC.
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The fifty fifty arts collective is comprised of individuals living and working on unceded and occupied First Nations Territories, specifically the lands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, as well as the W̱SÁNEĆ, Sc'ianew and T'Souke First Nations.
The programming space itself is situated on Songhees and Esquimalt Territory but engages with individuals and communities across Turtle Island.
As a collective we endeavour to deepen our own understandings of how we are implicated in the history and in the present ongoing project of settler colonialism. As members of the fifty fifty arts collective we continually responsibilize ourselves to the complex kind of space that is the fifty fifty which hosts and facilitates the dissemination of the ideas and work of others.
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Accessibility Information:
The entrance to the fifty fifty arts collective is wheelchair accessible, however, the door is not automatic and we have no washrooms on site. A more comprehensive statement regarding our accessibility is in progress, specific questions or requests regarding accessibility can be sent to [email protected]
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Funded by CRD Feed the Arts
This recent body of work explores hiddenness and home through the lens of the maternal. The paintings are rooms that one can peer into but not quite see. The crowded space of the interior is a soft place to hide – perhaps also a preserving, a pickling. But hiding, if correctly done, is embryonic. And it will open, become porous and permeate public.
Much of the research for this project has taken place in Rosengren’s home, using the physical actions and constraints of early motherhood to bring attention to how she makes paintings. The work is mapped by rapid calculations and measurements – the length of a TV show or nap, the space between meals and baths. The rhythms of making are shaped by the realities of caregiving, such as constant interruptions, and diverted attention.
Her process also incorporates domestic work, the repetitive labour of hands: scrubbing, stitching, grooming and washing as method for painting. Something is being done and undone and re-done, every day, and out of the apparent futility, something also continuous and forming. Transposing the performance and rituals of domestic labour into painting both highlights unseen work but also undermines painting’s legacy of masculinity with its heroic and solitary gestures.
Rosengren would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council for their support towards this project.
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Laura (she/her) is a Canadian artist, originally from Northwestern Ontario, currently living and working on Stó:lō territory in Chilliwack, BC. Her practice involves a mixed material approach to painting and considers questions around motherhood and labour. She is the recipient of 2022 project grants from Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, 2021 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and a finalist for the 2021 Salt Spring National Art Prize. Laura has a BFA from the Alberta University of the Art, and an MA from Regent College. Recent exhibitions include Spilt Milk Gallery Edinburgh, Scotland, CityScape Gallery, North Vancouver, BC, and Fort Gallery, Fort Langley, BC.
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The fifty fifty arts collective is comprised of individuals living and working on unceded and occupied First Nations Territories, specifically the lands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, as well as the W̱SÁNEĆ, Sc'ianew and T'Souke First Nations.
The programming space itself is situated on Songhees and Esquimalt Territory but engages with individuals and communities across Turtle Island.
As a collective we endeavour to deepen our own understandings of how we are implicated in the history and in the present ongoing project of settler colonialism. As members of the fifty fifty arts collective we continually responsibilize ourselves to the complex kind of space that is the fifty fifty which hosts and facilitates the dissemination of the ideas and work of others.
-
Accessibility Information:
The entrance to the fifty fifty arts collective is wheelchair accessible, however, the door is not automatic and we have no washrooms on site. A more comprehensive statement regarding our accessibility is in progress, specific questions or requests regarding accessibility can be sent to [email protected]
-
Funded by CRD Feed the Arts