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Christian Rosa (born 12 September 1982) is an artist best known for his sparse, abstract paintings built up from individual shapes and marks amid large expanses of raw, untreated canvas. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Rosa has lived and worked in Vienna and Los Angeles.
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Personal life
Rosa was born in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and was educated in Vienna, Austria, where his parents moved to when he was still young. He studied under Daniel Richter at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Work
Referencing both the language of Surrealism, especially that of Miró, and also paintings of Cy Twombly, his work contains both the building blocks for a pictorial narrative but also the methods of its deconstruction. Minimal mark-making in oil, charcoal, pencil, resin and oil stick and a reduction of visible brushwork create works that are improvisational in appearance, holding their carefully balanced elements in an arresting visual tension. Rosa harnesses the inherent qualities of his materials by using their textural appeal to create layers and depth and to encourage emotive and subjective responses in the viewer.
In his work, new modes of communication arise between the isolated, singular elements on the canvas surface, which suggest the preformed beginnings of something: where lines, squares and childlike squiggles act like mnemonic symbols of a larger conversation. Punctuated by areas of primary colour, Rosa’s images could suggest recognisable things such as roads, buildings or even faces; whereby marks create an emergent and uncomfortable figuration through their immediate juxtaposition. Curator Gabriela Salgado believes Rosa's painting is guided by "chance and an instinctive trust of the energy contained in physical motion and failure". Created as points of departure for a new emotive, visual experience, his pictures suggest planes of energy from which many different narratives and possibilities can spring off.
Exhibitions
Rosa first began exhibiting in Vienna in 2008. He had his first major gallery solo show at Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin in May 2014, " Love's gonna Save the Day" during Berlin Gallery Weekend, soon followed by a major solo show at White Cube gallery’s Mason’s Yard location in the historic St. James district of London. “Put Your Eye in Your Mouth” opened 20 March 2015. In 2014/15 he exhibited frequently throughout Europe and the United States.
He has participated in several international art shows, including the Venice Biennale "Momenta" in 2013, as well as the Brucennial 2012 in New York. Though he grew up in Europe, his background made him an important ambassador in a major group exhibition at Saatchi Gallery in 2014, “Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America”.
Projects
Rosa is the founder and prime artist behind "Grande Vista". This project involves a unique artist in residency program in an attempt to expose emerging artists to curators, galleries and collectors in Los Angeles.
Rosa was the executive producer for "A Wonderful Cloud", a film about exploring a former romance written and directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko. Only barely fictional (Kotlyarenko and his costar were once a couple), A Wonderful Cloud had its world premiere on 15 March at the 2015 SXSW festival.