Aryn Rosenbaum (BFA ’12)

“Binary Identity I” (Detail), 96″ x 48″, oil on panel

Aryn Rosenbaum is a Georgia native who recently graduated from Florida State University with her BFA in Studio Art.  Rosenbaum’s work has been featured in several  exhibitions at local galleries in 2012 which include the Nan Boynton Memorial Gallery, Jet Set, the Phyllis Straus Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University.  Recently, Rosenbaum co-founded MASS Gallery & Studio in Railroad Square Art Park in Tallahassee, FL where you can see her work every First Friday.

These paintings explore the fragility and complexities of the human psyche as an investigation of inner anxieties, shames, and fears. By depicting figures restrained and isolated,  I am exploring aspects of vulnerability and self-destruction.  Often times we create careless and horrible problems, that subconsciously we know are wrong.  However, we are compelled to act and to do things that are not in our self-interest.  The figures are restrained and offer themselves up to the viewer so that they serve as a cautionary reminder of how we can become victims of our own worst ideas.  By exploring the tension and anxiety between the rational and irrational states the mind, the larger than life human figure serves as the landscape for human suffering.

Each painting begins with a meticulous grid that is the foundation for visualizing the form on the surface.  While the start is analytical, the addition of paint transforms the flat surface into flesh and thought into tissue.  Turning to the Old Masters, I employ their offering of dramatic light with the intention of creating something electric and emotional.  Realism, as a visual language, interprets the world rationally, but at the same time is appropriate for conveying uncomfortable truths about reality.  The unresolved nature of these compositions allude to the inchoate and evolving nature of our consciousness.