ARTISTS RESPOND TO ROSEMARY OLLISON'S WORK

Each week we ask other artists in the show and occasional guests to comment about the featured artist's work.

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Christopher T. Wood
I have enormous respect for Rosemary Ollison and her artwork. Trying to write about it, I feel that I’m not qualified to do so. As though her work exists on a higher plane… has been created in a space I don’t yet have access to and maybe never will. But I will note this: In Rosemary’s work, I observe an interplay between a lightness, and a great weight. There is a lightness to the whimsical representation of figures and joy in the bright colors, and at the same time the work has a density—of value, of color, of material, and of theme—that gives it so much weight. I understand the light to be a beacon in the darkness.

Beth Kushner (attorney, collector)
I fell in love with Rosemary’s work and am more in love as I live with a large fabric piece.  It and Rosemary herself are about seeing the abundance in what otherwise might be overlooked.  Her work is joyful, optimistic, and worthwhile. I sent a video of Rosemary to a friend who teaches art at an East Coast university.  He played it for the class with no introduction and, when it finished, he said to the silent students “that is the real deal.”  He is correct.

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Pat Hidson
Rosemary's drawings offer satisfying surprises such as the little face patterns in the hair or the way body part placements are entirely optional. The originality and high level of skill also carries a message: I have always admired the style with which Rosemary and other women artists present themselves with flair and a signaling of well-earned self-respect. Her work addresses what I feel is a profound need to truly honor women in all their endless variety.

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David Niec
I am usually taken by a kind of release I feel from Rosemary's work. The drawings appear to be made without inhibition. There is often mark making that feels rapid and tends to produce a multitude of circles or other shapes that just don't want to stay still. Although sometimes the marks are contained within an outline of another form, they don't feel contained. They tend to pulsate, spin, grow, vibrate, dance and almost swim across the page. A proliferation of exuberance is a good way to describe her work. The drawings feel like a kind of energy field.

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Debra Brehmer, PSG owner/director
When I think of the ways women have been marginalized over the centuries, it is as if Rosemary Ollison steps in and defies each categorization. She works with textiles, fashion and jewelry design -- fields considered 'less than' in the art world. Her practice evolves from faith and personal narrative: also traditionally degraded in the art world. Even as museums and galleries diversify, systemic prejudices hold. Rosemary sheds these obstacles with drive and finesse. Her work carries a subtext of potentiality. The transformative act of making something from nothing reminds us of our own power to turn an average day into an exceptional one. Rosemary's love of materials places her in a context with contemporary artists such as  Chakaia Booker, who uses cast-off rubber tires in her sculptures, Vanessa German, Beverly Buchanan, and the quilters of Gees Bend (to name a few). Rosemary embraces the legacy of making-do, then frees it from necessity to sail ever higher into the art world. 

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