Smith
Alumna Artist Opens Exhibition
Purple
Parrot Tulip, by Phyllis Rosser ’56 (48"x 36",
acrylic on canvas). |
Red
Poppy, by Phyllis Rosser (48" x 36", acrylic on
canvas). |
New York artist and Smith Alumna
Phyllis Rosser ’56 continues her investigation into the visual
play of natural forms and the ecstatic pleasures of nature
with 10 large-scale paintings
of flowers and gardens at the Smith College Alumnae House
Gallery from August 25 through November 13.
The paintings
are part of her intense examination of nature, begun 25 years
ago with abstract wood sculpture, created by assembling limbs
and branches stripped of their bark and washed smooth by
the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls, Vermont.
She
concentrates on the abundant garden, the beauty of colors
and shapes, the eroticism of the blossoms. The viewer
looks at the flowers close up, as if they have been magnified
for our understanding and pleasure. Art critic Anne
Swartz compares Rosser’s intensity with Georgia O’Keefe’s
similar desire to see nature at a micro level and Robert
Mapplethorpe’s flower
photographs “immersing you in natural magnificence.”
Swartz
says, “we’re looking at nature in its glory,
at its most copious...the flowers are truly romantic in that
they are both beautiful (lovely palette, pleasing shapes,
and vital forms) and sublime (prompting a sense of awe at
the spectacle of nature, diminishing human presence in the
process).”
Phyllis
Rosser has had numerous one-person exhibitions in the New
York area and has participated in many group shows nationally, over the past
two decades. Her
sculpture was on view at the Smith College Alumnae House
in 2006. Both
her sculpture and paintings are represented in a number of
private and public collections, including the Smith College Museum of Art and
the sculpture collection of Microsoft. |
