revision Rose Dickson
Rose Dickson Rose Dickson lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She completed her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012. During her time at RISD, she studied at Speos International Photography School in Paris, France and participated in RISD’s European Honors Program in Rome, Italy. Since
graduation, Rose spent four months as an artist in residence at Taidelaitos Haihatus in Joutsa, Finland. This fall, with the support of Oregon Arts Commission, Rose looks forward to participate as resident artist at Organhaus Residency, Chongqing, China and Studio Kura Residency
A still from Building a Raft, 2013, video, 15 min loop
, Fukuoka, Japan. Expressed through a variety of media—photography, sculpture, video and poetry—her work explores the dichotomy of presence and absence, material and immaterial. The experiential quality of her work invites viewers to participate within the search. Upon
view, an intersection of art, artist and spectator is created, turning these distinct perspectives momentarily indistinct. Her work is in the collection of Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
A still from Building a Raft, 2013, video, 15 min loop
A room drowned in expansive water. Building a Raft is a looped video transitioning from a seascape to artist studio. Water builds up and
masks the perceptual boundaries of the space, while the artist paints over and over the walls, attempting to reclaim her studio.
Building a Raft was shot in Rose’s studio during her time as a resident artist at Taidelaitos Haihatus in Joutsa, Finland. The water imagery
was recorded at a nearby lake where, during her four-month stay, she spent most of the daylight hours, watching.
An interview with
Rose Dickson Your video installations, from Nothing Between Us to the latest What is Gone, are deeply marked by the invite to step into the frame, both virtually and physically like in Screen: we daresay that the experiential quality of the viewer is part of the creation process itself. Could you introduce our readers to this fundamental aspect of your art? Human perspective and boundary play a large role in my work. One thing that I consider while making, or even before physical construction, is where the viewer is and how the viewer is acting as another character in the piece. I am drawn to the artist-viewer relationship due to the richness of boundaries— the boundary of time between
when the artist made the work vs. when the viewer experiences the piece, the boundary of material representation and the boundary of proximity (to name a few). In the work I want to break those boundaries down and directly address the viewer. I am not necessarily trying to challenge any of the norms of the gallery world, more trying to expose them. To expose viewers, really. Especially Nothing Between Us: it is exposing the artist, but simultaneously exposing the viewer, and this direct address can create vulnerability. Of course, these boundaries go beyond artist/ viewer relations into all relationships, such as in What is Gone, which through captured images exposes the boundary of time. Building a Raft is an exploration of spatial boundary. Confronting that kind of exposure —
A still from What is Gone, 2014, video, 15 min
psychically, interpersonally, and contextually — reaches beyond the artist to those engaging with the work as well.
stuck on the visual image of author/reader relationship, which is why I went on to create Nothing Between Us.
In particular, in your video Nothing Between Us this aspect is led to paroxysm: we can see a suspended surface, acting as a barrier between artist and viewer. How did you come up with the idea for this work?
Actually, I remember the instance that triggered the initial inspiration for In This Forest of Frost and stayed with me into the development of Nothing Between Us. One night in Providence, RI, I went to a house show with just 8 or 9 people there. I knew one of the guys who was playing, although not very well, yet somehow, sitting on the floor beneath him, I had the opportunity to watch him for an hour and a half and not feel strange or guilty about this kind of directed attention. The impact this had on me was very revealing to my own sense of boundary and the existence of social boundaries as well. The opportunity to really stare at someone isn’t available anymore. Unless it is a performance.
I came up with the idea for Nothing Between Us after I wrote In This Forest of Frost, an eight page book using printed text and cutouts. The book relies on both the narrator and the reader as the two characters, attempting to see one another and communicate through the layers of space and shadow. The complex revealing/concealing of text creates a narrative about perspective, exposing the foresight the author has of the viewer and the kind of after image that the viewer gets of the author. However, after making In This Forest of Frost, I was still
We have selected for this year's edition your video installation What is Gone
A still from What is Gone, 2014, video, 15 min What is Gone collages together two separate videos of individuals in the same space. The actors present were never recorded in the same frame. The green screen symbolizes an uninhabitable space and
highlights the detached quality of the film. Upon view, the two characters are forced into interaction by the viewer who is unable to disassociate them. This human construction questions our own ability to
disassociate ourselves with the actors on screen. Each character (including viewer) represents a part of the reality presented.
In part inspired byMarguerite Yourcenar ’s essay That Mighty Sculptor, Time translated from the French by Walter Kaiser
A still from What is Gone, 2014, video, 15 min
by Marguerite Yourcenar’s That Mighty Sculptor Time. When did you come across Yourcenar ’s essay ? I was in the midst of making What is Gone when I was introduced to That Mighty Sculptor Time. I had written a draft of the text for What is Gone before we shot the video and it was not until I started editing the video that I became intrigued with the statuesque quality of portraiture. That, as well as the connection of “stone” running through all forms of archival processes— a material so much more durable than ones used today. It was after shooting the video that a mentor and poet friend of mine, Michele Glazer, gave me a copy of Yourcenar’s essay. I was so inspired by the work that I couldn’t help but feel part of its message belonged in What is Gone. “It goes without saying that we do not possess a single Greek statue in the state in
which its contemporaries knew it…” Yourcenar’s thought on Greek statues is akin to the images we keep of everyday life. That is really the foundation of What is Gone: holding an image that represents someone and coming to know its distortion within your own mind. The inspiration leading to production was primarily painters’ work, like Richard Diebenkorn and Edvard Munch. Recently, I went to Norway and visited the Munch Museum. I like the way Munch overlapped the human form and, in a sense, contorted bodies into one. I think that is initially where the idea for What is Gone began. Diebenkorn, with a slightly different effect, also does this, but mostly Diebenkorn’s lines… ah. The way these painters blend bodies, is reflected in my attempt to blend images and text in the mind of the viewer. Video is a cool medium because you are not only flattening space but also time. And it is the memory that the
A still from What is Gone, 2014, video, 15 min
viewer holds on to from What is Gone that ultimately becomes most intriguing about the work. Your video Building a Raft has been conceived and realized during your residence at Taidelaitos Haihatus in Finland. Could you introduce our readers to this experience? Joutsa is a town of roughly 4,000, about two hours north of Helsinki. There is a gas station, grocery store, karaoke bar, “kirppis” (thrift store), tea house and of course, Haihatus. Otherwise, it’s trees and lakes, as is most of Finland. The directors of Haihatus, Merja and Raimo, are incredible individuals, and I feel lucky to have worked alongside them and the other international resident artists. Most of my days in Joutsa were spent venturing to a particular favorite spot: a hike through a birch tree forest, past a valley with an extraordinary grass mound, over a small
embankment, to find a very quiet lake. This lake was unique in that instead of being totally surrounded by trees, it was primarily in grassland, allowing the sky to be the only object of reflection onto the still water. I was captivated, watching the sky’s blue reflection change to white with the season, and seeing this lake’s wall-like white facade was what evoked Building a Raft. We have found interesting the way you explore the perceptual boundaries of the space in Building a Raft . Could you tell us a particular episode that has helped the birth of this project? In 2011 I spent six months in Rome and toured around the north of Italy. The tour quickly became centered around the country’s rich history of art and architecture. A few of the highlights being Palladio’s Villa La Rotunda, Carlo Scarpa’s La tomba Brion and of course, the Pantheon. Emphasizing the
A still from Building a Raft, 2013, video, 15 min loop
magnificence of the architecture are the studies in perspective and trompe-l'œi in the frescos and paintings. This historical foundation propelled my desire to explore traditions in form and spatial composition. The birth of perspective fascinates me: a flat surface that through a painter’s will becomes seemingly habitable. Since I was young I have had a routine of counting corners. Walking into a new room or even waiting in a familiar one, I occasionally spend the time counting the visible, or implied corners that the open space has to offer. So the concept of facade, since youth, continues to both intrigue and terrify me. I feel a strong emotive response to a contained vs expansive environment, which is a key idea explored in Building a Raft. Emily Dickinson, who was agoraphobic, explored similar obsessions in her envelope poems. Recently released, The Gorgeous
Nothings is an incredible experience of spatial enclosure vs exposure. In these last years we have seen that the frontier between Video Art and Cinema is growing more and more vague: Building a Raft and its stunning cinematography seems to confirm this trend. Do you think that this "frontier" will exists longer? I agree there is an ever greying line between video art and cinema. However, I have never considered myself a “cinematographer”. I usually think of the camera as someone watching. So instead of cultivating an eye for cinematography or establishing my own unique perspective, I allow my work to function as sculpture being viewed. We find that your art is rich in references. Apart from Marguerite Yourcenar, can you tell us your biggest
A still from Building a Raft, 2013, video, 15 min loop
influences in art and how they have affected your work? While I have mentioned many instances of influence, for me I guess it is really less about a few heroes and more about the relationships I find between what I’m currently making and something I come across. But to name some artists that have had an impact on my work, Étienne-Louis Boullée, Michael Snow, Alvin Lucier, and the poets Paul Celan, Anne Carson, Proust, Dickinson, Susan Howe. Perhaps the most influential thing I ever learned about “making” was taught to me by a professor at RISD, Lane Meyer. I can’t remember exactly how he put it, but what I learned from him was not to worry about how “the thing” will be made but to instead allow yourself to first imagine the thing, in the best of all possible worlds, and then to find a way to make it. Dealing with cost and material problems before even harnessing an idea is so
limiting. This has given me a freedom to create work, that before I wouldn’t have even allowed myself to imagine. Not to say that it can always come to be. I mean, I have many ideas in my head that I haven't found a viable means to make… but once I do, that’s the easy part. What’s next for Rose Dickson? Are there any new projects on the horizon? I recently completed a new video piece, Becoming is a Secret Process. It opens in October at Upfor Gallery in Portland, OR. Stay tuned! Also in October, with the support of Oregon Arts Commission, I am heading to Chongqing, China for a three-month residency at Organhaus Art Space and then I will go to Japan for two months at Studio Kura Residency in Fukuoka.