9.24.12 Featured Artist: Grace Roselli Our Marvelous Punishment, 2012

The title “Our Marvelous Punishment” for this recent series of work is taken from the last stanza in “Voyage” by Tony Hoagland.

“The sea was no longer a metaphor.
The book was no longer a book.
That was the plot.
That was our marvelous punishment.”

External empirical reality, cultural mythologies, gods and monsters vs the human capital of a post-industrial society.

I am fascinated with – and my work engages the space created through that layering of perceptions – what is it to even exist? I am pushing my work practice to use the simplest of means to explore an idea fundamentally unknowable. Primal magic and metaphor combined with a rainy day slog to the subway.

Our Marvelous Punishment 4, 2012, oil on canvas, 84 x 60in

Grace Roselli earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and received the RISD scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Roselli completed a residency with the Empire State Studio Program in NYC, then moved to Venice, Italy, studying with Emilio Vedova at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Roselli currently maintains a studio in the “Dumbo” neighborhood of Brooklyn. Recent exhibitions include “Getting From Here to There,” AFP Gallery, “The Last Art Fair,” Northside Festival, “Painting With Pictures 2,” Artjail, and “As Vision Moves Sideways,” The Hole. She has been featured in Hyperallergic, Fine Art Magazine, Artnet Magazine, Metropolitan Home, Village Voice, Time Out New York, The New York Times, Art Matters, Quarto 31 [Columbia University Press], Lusitania Press, among others.

graceroselli.tumblr.com

Artist website: graceroselli.com