Improvisational Landscapes – Rosemary Dzus

Annapolis Valley based artist Rosemary Dzus exhibits a series of original paintings and generational reproductions of her work on view in the corridor gallery January 7 – 28, 2015. Reflecting on abstraction, representation and improvisation, Dzus describes the work:

Rosemary Dzus, "Prairie Sky", watercolour and photocopies, 2014
Rosemary Dzus, “Prairie Sky”, watercolour and photocopies, 2014

This body of work explores the zone between abstraction and representation.  It’s much like musical improvisation — starting out with a familiar piece, then working with a motif based on the fundamental structure, moving it further and further from the original until the relationship is scarcely discernible. The repetition and generational reproduction of the images through the copying process reveals the confluence of the technology of copying, the grain of the pigment, and the energy of the artist’s marks.  As the image fades, the boundaries between these three elements becomes blurred and overlaps, with the image increasingly becoming an abstraction, though still identifiable through the strong horizontals as “landscape.”

Rosemary is a mixed-media artist, working primarily in pencil, paint and collage.  She is a recent arrival to the Annapolis Valley, with a BFA from the University of Manitoba, and a BSc in Environmental Studies from the University of Winnipeg. She majored in photography in Fine Arts, and, for a number of years, engaged in that pursuit as a livelihood and an artist.  More recently, she has moved to painting, drawing and collage, following a number of different threads including landscape painting, and explorations of her family history through photographs, memory, and metaphor.

Located inside the Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) office at the Halifax Seaport, since 2000, the Corridor Gallery is complimented by a historical legacy of Nova Scotia culture, simple yet modern architectural elements and an array of current cultural activity in the Cultural Federations of Nova Scotia office. The Corridor Gallery is located at 1113 Marginal Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia and is open Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm.

For further information regarding the exhibition contact:

Becky Welter-Nolan
Programming Coordinator
Visual Arts Nova Scotia
1113 Marginal Road, Halifax, NS B3H 4P7
902.423.4694    1.866.225.8267   f: 902.422.0881
vans@visualarts.ns.ca