NYAB Event - Rosy Keyser "Promethean Dub"

Rosy Keyser "Promethean Dub"

Peter Blum Gallery

This event has ended.

Peter Blum presents the exhibition Rosy Keyser: Promethean Dub. This will be Rosy Keyser’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Loosely inspired by the first law of thermodynamics, Promethean Dub brings together a group of large-scale canvases, and small and works that relate themes of transmutation and rebirth to the concept that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The title of the exhibition is derived from the myth of Prometheus, who was responsible for endowing humankind with the fire of life and the musical genre of Dub, born of
poverty and ingenuity, a means of creating new sounds by reformatting preexisting songs. These ideas are echoed in process-driven abstractions, which incorporate industrial and found resources with more traditional painting materials. Raw blocks of wood jut out from ink-stained canvases and glossy enamel is layered over matte house paint in expressive brushstrokes. Keyser also employs fire's disappearing act as a material and a tool by burning holes directly into paintings. The physicality of this process can further be seen in the use of foraged sawdust mixed with found aggregate mica and pigment that is applied to the surface of canvases. Additionally, several of the paintings have been stretched on top of uneven planes to create shapes that push the physical limitations of the canvas. These transformational properties of
elements involved allow for a new physicality – a recasting of energy.

Rosy Keyser was born 1974 in Baltimore, MD and lives and works in Brooklyn and Medusa, New York. Keyser received her BFA from Cornell University and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago