Tom Rose
In the exhibition Fragments: Provisional Locations,Rose makes objects
that are still lives of memories - sites of possessed places. The objects
give a physical existence to memory and an autobiographical dimension to
the artist. This exhibition continues his exploration of one's location
(place), as in a particular house, a specific street, an exact address.
It is a given that if one has an understanding of one's location, the ego
is able to construct the larger space of possibility. In this exhibition,
the address for the artist is his childhood house. The space (place) is
both real and metaphoric. The generic form of the artist's house makes it
universal. Rose punctuates the house as the constructed conception of the
body. The house not only houses the body but also insures the survival of
the body, shielding its vulnerability from nature. The house frames us in
a cultural and temporal context. Time becomes present in the form of memory
past and present.
Rose represents the fragments of location by constructing a mailbox, a bench,
a table, a chair, a room and a house called Ash Garden. Ash Garden's space
is a theoretical construction of memory using materials that will engage
the viewer in meditation through the tactile and visual qualities of the
materials. Rose's objects are as much in transition as they are thought
to be fixed. His letter needs an address, his chair a position. The star
maps etched into his sculptural Periodic Table (shown on the invitation)
are metaphysical address' locations in infinite space - brought down to
the scale of the house.
Rose's work makes each of his fragmented domestic spaces a theater. His
objects focus on ordinary events and allow those events to be transformed
by time into memory so that they evolve into a distinct personal scene.
Each of his objects becomes a location in the longer journey of finding
one's way.