Our Enduring Drama

Art Placement is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by Saskatoon artists Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald, whose varied works highlight a decidedly contemporary ambivalence toward the practice of image-making. Each artist makes personal, idiosyncratic paintings that weave between figuration and abstraction, following a process that begins as a mark and proceeds as a considered series of responses and decisions. Both start with an intention and find themselves somewhere else more interesting and less defined than that beginning. Their approach to materials is equally respectful of tradition and experimentation, incorporating oil paint with drawing and water media, wax, collage, scraping, sanding, layering, and erasure. These pictorial strategies, application techniques, and use of varying degrees of abstraction obscure and often deny any straightforward reading of narrative. While subject and meaning may be merely inferred or hidden altogether, each work stands as a record of struggle with and commitment to the practice of painting.