A.M. Rousseau Artist Talk/Book Signing

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A. M. Rousseau

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A.M. Rousseau Artist Talk/Book Signing

Lines of Inquiry

Jason Vass

1452 E 6th St

Los Angeles, CA 90021

Artist Talk/Book Signing: June 2, 2-4pm

On view through June 2, 2018

Jason Vass is pleased to present Lines of Inquiry, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by A.M. Rousseau. Rousseau is a multi-disciplined artist, writer and photographer currently living in Southern California who has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Rousseau’s works are imbued with an investigation of line. She takes her inspiration from a Paul Klee dictum: “Take a line for a walk, aimlessly for the sake of the walk.” She sees each line as a metaphor for the way life happens: one point leading to another, ever changing. For her, “Every line is a reflection of individual will, a unique indicator of purpose and direction, just as in hieroglyphics, a kind of handwriting that can be read if the system of mark making is understood.” 

The works on view range from black and white works on paper like Downward Hang, and Left Leaning in which a succession of quasi concentric black lines gracefully flow as if suspended across two supports. The algorithm used in creating these works becomes more complex as Rousseau moves across multiple sheets of paper adding color into the mix. In works like Fire and Ice Quartet and 100 Line Rush Triptych the undulating curves have a wave-like pattern reminiscent of an abstracted ocean. When Rousseau moves from paper to canvas and from ink and colored pencil to acrylic paint, she begins to fill in shapes creating denser compositions where the linear elements originate from a central core. 

Rousseau’s lines are both gestural and used to outline geometric forms as in Perspective Collective and Spiral Quartet. Her work has much in common with the timeless quality of ancient Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, at the same time as it is firmly rooted in contemporary art practice as comparisons to works by conceptual artists Sol LeWitt or Robert Mangold are apt as are connections to the works of Julie Mehretu.

Ann Marie Rousseau received her undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. She is the recipient of a National Endowment in the Arts Fellowship, The Djerassi Foundation Affymax Fellowship, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Artist Residency, Yaddo Artist residency, the Virginia Center for the Arts residency, the Manhattan Borough President’s Award for Excellence and Service in the Arts, and the Harc Foundation Award. She has been exhibiting since 1990 including most recently exhibitions at the Upland Museum of Art (2017), the Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2016), CMay Gallery, Los Angeles and Korea (2015).