Terry Rose: USA>China>Mexico
June 2 – July 14 at Gallery NAGA
Terry Rose has been living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for the past two years making work and contemplating his next move. Having lived in various locations in the US for most of his life, he moved to Shanghai in 2012, before moving to Mexico in 2015. The changing landscape and rhythms can be felt in his paintings, and most recently, his ceramics.
In addition to a small body of ceramics Rose has completed in the last two years, highlights from the last ten years of Rose’s studio paintings will be on view.
Rose’s paintings reflect directly the manner of their making. Flat on their backs, his aluminum panels are first toned with thick wet layers of varnish into which Rose introduces oils and dry pigments, which disperse within the varnish. To an extent, the paintings compose themselves through a hydraulic process that Rose initiates, which he can, at this point, anticipate, but which he does not fully control. He refers to this as “the natural processes of the materials.”
The forms in his work, which are suggestive of both marine life and microbiology, among many other associations, are entities specific to him. “The forms in the paintings are bursts, not like nuclear explosions, but things that have this energy,” Rose says. “With the mediums that I use, it turns that energy into something concrete. I wanted the ceramic pieces to be flowering from the inside out.”
The ceramic vessels were done during Rose’s tenure in Shanghai. The forms resemble flowering eruptions with the interior and exterior in contrasting colors. Tall, irregular shaped forms burst open at the top revealing a starkly different interior. The undulating bumps of the exterior are accentuated by Rose’s meandering drawn applied line following the crease points. Rose intends them to be non-functional. Instead of putting flowers inside of these vessels the vessel is the flower itself.
Terry Rose: USA>China>Mexico 2007 – 2016 runs from June 2 through July 14. A reception for the public will be held at the gallery on Friday, June 2 from 6 to 8 pm.