Peter Blum is pleased to announce the exhibition Rosy Keyser: Promethean Dub opening on September 15 at Peter Blum Chelsea, 526 West 29th Street, New York. This will be Rosy Keyser’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, September 15, from 6 – 8 pm.
Loosely inspired by the first law of thermodynamics, Promethean Dub brings together a group of large-scale canvases and small 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 Dub, born of poverty and ingenuity, a means of creating new sounds by reformatting preexisting songs. The combination of these ideas is echoed in process-driven abstractions, which incorporate industrial and found resources with more traditional painting materials. Burlap is painted and collaged onto ink-stained canvases, nails are driven into wooden panels, 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. The 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. Her work has been included in the following group shows: Immaterial at Ballroom Marfa, Texas,curated by Fairfax Dorn (2011); A Painting Show at Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York, NY (2011); I Can't Forget, But I Don't Remember What at Freymond Guth Fine Art, Zurich, Switzerland (2010); Spray at D'Amelio Terras , New York, NY (2010); Hi, Low and In Between at Grimm Fine Art, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009); New Work at Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (2009); Sack of Bones at Peres Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2008); Zero Zone at Tracy Williams Ltd., New York (2008); Stubborn Materials at Peter Blum Chelsea, New York (2007); Her work is included in permanent collections such as The Louisiana Museum, Denmark and the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.