Tuesday 12 - Sunday 24 July 2011

10 am - 5 pm

She

"The prints and sculptures I am currently engaged in making are an attempt to redress the shortage of depictions of women as thinkers:
strong, singular entities, not mother, queen or sex object, able to indulge and be guilty of sloth and envy and yet still maintain a feminine beauty and sexiness."
A siren: an enticing plea or appeal, especially one that is deceptively alluring.

Rosie studied for a degree in Archaeology, and became preoccupied with depictions of women throughout history:
the goddess of fertility, the dominance of the gatherer/homemaker role, and the possibility of matriarchal societies in the Neolithic period.
The world of art reflects these same themes, with Degas' delicate dancers and burlesque bathers,
Rodin's sexualised drawings of women, fallen at the gates of hell, and Henry Moore's gigantic queens and powerful mothers cradling infants.

"The prints are cardboard cuts – like lino prints, but made by cutting into and marking mount board.
I work directly from a life model to make the plates, so they have an expressive and direct feel. They are printed in relief
and I add a gold glaze to some of the backgrounds, the gilt adding to the allure of the female form and contrastsing with the strength of the black print.
I print a small edition of 5 prints, a maximum of 10 and one proof, using my studio printing press.
The depiction of form through line is influenced by the linear depictions of women in Picasso’s blue period drawings,
and the later line drawings of women in Matisse’s work.

The sculptures in the round, and relief sculptures, are developed from life drawings in white stoneware clay
that has a black glaze stain rubbed in to add definition to the intentional and integral marks in the surfaces of the work."

Sea

As well as recording in oil and watercolour the expanse of the sea and sky, I am a collector of bits and stuff,
such as sea shells, whose spiralling forms are the basis for the ceramic lamps I have developed.

I love the places where the sky and sea meet the land at first and last light, and I enjoy composing landscapes, seascapes
and skyscapes in watercolour and oil, focusing on the spiralling colours and forms in the land and sky.
The intimate coves and creeks of the South coast of Devon, and the wide expanses of beaches and cliffs of the North coast
have been the inspiration for a large body of work."

Sky

"Colour is of great importance to me. My dusk vision is poor – I am frustrated by dark rooms
because I can’t see all the colours, and this influences my palette in all the colour work I do.
Colour is light reflected and refracted, and I find the theories of colour that allow the sky to be green in painting fascinating.
Even within the more traditional or conservative landscapes and seascapes I have developed there is still, I hope, an intensity of colour.
I am enthralled by lurid colour: Roaul Dufy’s vivid Mediterranean seas, Salvador Dali’s surreal expansive skies, and the brilliant colour of Matisse’s paper cuts."

www.rosieburnsartist.com