Clare Rojas USA, b. 1976
Untitled, 2016
Oil on linen
17 x 15 in
43.2 x 38.1 cm
43.2 x 38.1 cm
5507
In this series of paintings, Clare Rojas is working within the liminal space between abstraction and figuration, as visual stories unfold within quasi-illusional space. For Rojas, storytelling manifests in many...
In this series of paintings, Clare Rojas is working within the liminal space between abstraction and figuration, as visual stories unfold within quasi-illusional space. For Rojas, storytelling manifests in many different ways: sometimes visually, as a painting, drawing, or sculpture; or other times musically, as a song. Yet one similarity Rojas has noticed between these various forms of expression has to do with reduction. Her songwriting pares down the essence of a story to something that can be conveyed in minutes, just as the essence of form and line in her abstract visual compositions is reduced to an examination of the tension of balance.
However, though theoretically reductive, Rojas’ highly individualized visual language also represents an escalation. Each composition proliferates from a personal totemic form un-rooted to figurative meaning, but evocative of the shape of a drop of water or a mountain. The form has evolved over time, from an abstract shape that Rojas instinctively drew to something concrete she began noticing in her everyday visual environment. Says Rojas, “The more I drew it, and meditated on the shape, the more I saw it everywhere I looked. I found it in the figure, in nature, in water, in land, in animals.”
Artist Biography
Clare Rojas (b. 1976, US) earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent projects include Egret at Kavi Gupta (2018), a site-specific commission for the Art in Embassies Program in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (2018), a two-person exhibition with Barry McGee at the Watari Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2017), and a solo exhibition at the Alice Gallery in Brussels, Belgium (2016). Other recent solo exhibitions include New Works at Anglim Gilbert San Francisco; self-titled shows at Vladmir Restoin Roitfeld, New York and Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen; Pith at Prism, Los Angeles; and We They at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco. Rojas’ work has been reviewed in such publications as the Huffington Post, Artforum International Magazine, Art in America, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, and Art Review.
However, though theoretically reductive, Rojas’ highly individualized visual language also represents an escalation. Each composition proliferates from a personal totemic form un-rooted to figurative meaning, but evocative of the shape of a drop of water or a mountain. The form has evolved over time, from an abstract shape that Rojas instinctively drew to something concrete she began noticing in her everyday visual environment. Says Rojas, “The more I drew it, and meditated on the shape, the more I saw it everywhere I looked. I found it in the figure, in nature, in water, in land, in animals.”
Artist Biography
Clare Rojas (b. 1976, US) earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent projects include Egret at Kavi Gupta (2018), a site-specific commission for the Art in Embassies Program in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (2018), a two-person exhibition with Barry McGee at the Watari Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2017), and a solo exhibition at the Alice Gallery in Brussels, Belgium (2016). Other recent solo exhibitions include New Works at Anglim Gilbert San Francisco; self-titled shows at Vladmir Restoin Roitfeld, New York and Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen; Pith at Prism, Los Angeles; and We They at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco. Rojas’ work has been reviewed in such publications as the Huffington Post, Artforum International Magazine, Art in America, Interview Magazine, The New York Times, and Art Review.