Boccaccio’s Dream by Rosemary Cooley
Opening reception: Saturday, October 1, 2022 from 6pm – 8pm
Washington Printmakers presents artworks of Rosemary Cooley, in her 5th solo exhibition at the gallery. Her painterly monoprints and collages reflect thoughts from the unconscious mind, a personal archeology based on a lifetime of world travel and cross cultural experiences, coupled with a love of art history and the materials of art making.
As a printmaker who has long honored process as a road to product, she now delves into the Jungian concept that one must disentangle from the Ego, and work intuitively, to reach a more powerful path.
In this exhibition, the artist celebrates notions of Individuation, of finding one’s unique personality apart from societal expectations. The Celebration of the Collective Unconscious, in which there are symbols which mankind has repeated throughout ages and over countless cultures, also plays a strong role.
The artworks are created from torn and cut monoprints, all hand pulled from an inked polymer plate onto various archival papers, ranging from thick to thin. This is where the Dream Forest begins, and where certain unexpected, even disparate entities come together to form a new sensory reality.
Unconscious thoughts spill into the real world in the form of landscapes, still lifes and abstract designs as monoprint pieces combine with old script, found in world markets are transferred onto thin Japanese papers and added to the works. This chance meeting of unrelated entities which somehow creates a new reality when pasted down. As Jung said, “Often the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect has wrestled in vain”.
Rosemary’s fascination with medieval manuscript illuminations are reflected in the accents of 23k gold leaf into the designs.
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside awakens.” – Carl Jung
About the Artist
Rosemary Cooley is a printmaker and painter with an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts and a graduate degree in Art History. She studied printmaking with mentors in the US and Italy, and worked in the studio, initiated by William Kentridge in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has taught studio art and art history in the United States and South Africa, and has exhibited widely in Shanghai, China; Caracas, Venezuela; Bangkok, Thailand; Port Elizabeth, South Africa and the US. Her artwork is in collections worldwide. Rosemary also teaches printmaking at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD and from time to time at Washington Printmakers Gallery.
http://rosemarycooleyart.com/
