Art Bruts | Twin | Issue 3 A/W 2010/11
For the third edition of Twin, I was asked to write about 2 painters: Rosson Crow and Luke Rudolf.
Extract: Texan born painter, Rosson Crow creates flamboyant decadent interiors rendered in a heightened palette of dripping neon pinks and sludgy reds. Reminiscent of a Hammer House of Horrors film set with stuffed animals, chandeliers, ornate decoration and stagecoaches, Crow has the ability to instantly draw you into her world of over-the-top showmanship. ‘My mother was an interior designer, so I think I grew up with a certain spatial sensibility. I remember always being aware of "moods" within spaces and being fascinated with the idea of creating them around the house by re-arranging furniture and dimming the lights!’
Extract: They are portraits but not as we know them. There isn’t an associative backdrop; a rural pile or notable interior, nothing remotely physical in their appearance and certainly no distinguishable features to indicate who the sitter may be. Instead, London based artist Luke Rodolf’s portraits toy with our preconceptions, deconstructing our understanding and revert to a simplified foundation on which to produce his abstracted renditions, ‘The traditional modernist reduction of a figure is reversed to render a portrait of addition. Paradoxically, the work claims to be neither ‘abstract’ nor to portray anything in the traditional understanding of portraiture - it is this contradiction that interests me.’
Extract: Texan born painter, Rosson Crow creates flamboyant decadent interiors rendered in a heightened palette of dripping neon pinks and sludgy reds. Reminiscent of a Hammer House of Horrors film set with stuffed animals, chandeliers, ornate decoration and stagecoaches, Crow has the ability to instantly draw you into her world of over-the-top showmanship. ‘My mother was an interior designer, so I think I grew up with a certain spatial sensibility. I remember always being aware of "moods" within spaces and being fascinated with the idea of creating them around the house by re-arranging furniture and dimming the lights!’
Extract: They are portraits but not as we know them. There isn’t an associative backdrop; a rural pile or notable interior, nothing remotely physical in their appearance and certainly no distinguishable features to indicate who the sitter may be. Instead, London based artist Luke Rodolf’s portraits toy with our preconceptions, deconstructing our understanding and revert to a simplified foundation on which to produce his abstracted renditions, ‘The traditional modernist reduction of a figure is reversed to render a portrait of addition. Paradoxically, the work claims to be neither ‘abstract’ nor to portray anything in the traditional understanding of portraiture - it is this contradiction that interests me.’
