Ritual Gathering

Ritual Gathering

Art Review by Steffi Drewes

The Abstracts’ Dilemma by KC Rosenberg

Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light by Laura Malone

Continuing through October 19, 2024 at Mercury 20, Oakland, California

The concurrent solo shows at Oakland’s artist-run Mercury 20 Gallery highlight the dynamic work of Bay Area artists KC Rosenberg and Laura Malone. Each painter has a distinct way of harnessing narrative abstraction through an interplay of light and shadow, crescendos of color, and rich materiality. In Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light, Malone explores feminine subjectivity and relationships in dreamlike waterscapes of women, while Rosenberg builds a compelling visual syntax of lines and dots to process her experience with memory loss and recall in The Abstracts’ Dilemma.

Both artists grapple with the fluid nature of time by engaging forms of ritual gathering—the act of women gathering in nature, the gathering of sensory information, the gathering of stories, and the gathering of materials. Metallic elements throughout offer a wink to another dimension, a wavering in perception, a memory glinting but not fully recognized. It’s a reminder that both artists present storylines that flicker before the eyes.

Drawing on archetypes of water as a symbol of creation, cleansing, renewal, and the unconscious, Malone examines the sacred and mundane aspects of feminine connection in 18 watery landscapes. The series opens with abstract silhouettes of women dappled in a wide spectrum of turquoise, crimson, cadmium orange hues, and sienna shadows, before plunging us into cool, oceanic scenes flooded with emerald and ultramarine blue, and culminating in warm, lustrous pink portraits.

Working on canvas, aluminum and copper panels, and transparent Dura-Lar film gives the artist room to experiment with materiality, light, and perception, while allowing glimpses of metal to peek through for added luminosity. Malone’s thick, gestural brushstrokes create layers of abstraction, undulating movement, and texture in the vivid aquatic scenes. The blurring of bodies, faces, and natural elements also suggests a multiplicity of narrative events that defy a singular chronology.

One portrait shows a nude, seated woman gazing into the swirling depths below, a pose reminiscent of Greek mythology’s Narcissus, who became entranced by his own reflection in a pool. The painting is titled “Thrownness” after Martin Heidegger’s philosophy on human existence, which suggests that people are “thrown” into worldly situations without choice. Malone’s portrait offers an alternate origin story highlighting the journey toward feminine introspection and self-discovery.

The collection balances moments of intimacy and anonymity, individuality and collective identity, corporeality and spirituality. Female subjects gather around each other with both arms raised, as if signaling collective joy or ecstatic surrender—to oneself, to each other, to nature, to the viewer. Malone welcomes the ambiguity of this gesture, whether it’s celebrating, waving, calling for attention, asking for permission, or responding to danger. “It’s mostly joy, but maybe there’s an undercurrent of something else,” she says.

We observe a powerful intermingling of women’s sensual, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and worldly selves that is captivating. In “Crepuscular” and “Gathering Darkness, Gathering Light,” the clustering of figures in silhouette lends a mysterious aura, as if the viewer stumbled upon a moonlit gathering with a higher purpose. Malone’s work consistently raise questions about the relationship between subjects and audience. Is their gaze directed at us or are we voyeurs to a ritual gathering?

Rosenberg’s collection responds to the changes in cognitive functioning and memory recall she has experienced following a stroke in 2021. “In social situations, I found myself having trouble following people’s stories. As soon as they introduced a new person or event, I completely lost the plot,” she says. The artist decided to document her memories through abstract painting, a process she aligns with Agnes Martin’s use of marks as a delineation of space, boundaries, and time.

In Rosenberg’s world, “abstraction is the narrative,” with storylines rendered in thick layers of paint, colorful stripes and dots, canvas strips, and textured medium. “The dots become notes or periods at the end of a sentence, these stop and gos. Musicality has a narrative structure in itself,” she says. As a guitar and bass player, creating a physical manifestation of lyric and music has become second nature.  

These abstract timelines function as both a personal recording device for memories and a way of mapping her highly kinetic process in the studio. Rosenberg instinctually gathers remnants from her workspace and lets them guide her next move. Canvas pieces are washed, distressed, torn, stitched on, cut out, walked on, rewashed, and painted over to reveal new colors and textures. A scrap of stained canvas on the floor leads to the next painting, just as a serendipitous paint drip or pattern gives new direction to an existing work.

The first painting, “Nearly Missed Day,” introduces us to the artist’s vulnerable relationship with time and memory. Rosenberg continues building a vibrant visual archive using bold colors, light and darkness, and overlapping patterns that reflect the ebb and flow of memories, including shadowy realms of the mind where details go missing.

Neuroscientists tell us that our memories are inherently flawed because every time a memory is recalled or retold, it is reconstructed, reshaped, and rewritten. Rosenberg’s process of painting closely mirrors her neurological experience. Just as each work involves the steady accrual and archiving of material, there is a ritual peeling back of layers to reveal earlier colors, shapes, and history. Adding and removing elements helps convey the complex feelings of loss, absence, and nostalgia, as we experience the slipperiness of making meaning and memory.

There is an inherent edginess, a desire to push boundaries, both conceptually and physically, in Rosenberg’s paintings. Titles like “Stupid Things I Want to Tell You,” “She Hasn’t Blinked the Entire Trip” and “Blowing Raspberries” perplex and challenge the viewer’s perception about what the work represents. We also witness the artist pushing physical limitations where bits of fabric, rogue threads, and paint creep over the edges, signaling an overflow of information. And so, the story continues.

Rosenberg’s 16 paintings can be viewed as open pages running horizontally along the wall, invoking yet another form of gathering: a set of printed signatures of a book. At the end of the collection, a turquoise paint-soaked string take on a calligraphic quality that feels like a departing signature from the artist—an open-ended lyric making room for the next chapter.

KC Rosenberg: The Abstract's Dilemma and Laura Malone: Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light, Mercury 20 Gallery, 475 25th Street, Oakland CA 94612. Friday + Saturday: 12-5pm and by appt. Oakland Style Week: October 12, 12 – 5pm, www.Mercurytwenty.com

On view through October 19, 2024.

Detail 2

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Detail 3

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