Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald: Journal of the Plague Year
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Gallery 330g 330 Avenue G South, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7M 1V2

Betsy Rosenwald, "The Sleep of Reason (after Goya)," 2021
sumi-e ink and acrylic gouache on post- consumer cardboard, 29" x 18"
Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald: Journal of the Plague Year
This installation of paintings by Saskatoon-based artists Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald, is a powerful blend of conviction and rage created in response to the pandemic and toxic politics of 2020. Inspired by signage at the 2017 Women’s March in New York City, which the artists attended together, the paintings are all on post-consumer waste cardboard.
Dawna Rose’s packed floor-to-ceiling installation of signs depicts images of birds, words, portraits, dates, and clocks. Her signs are a journal that connects to the day-to-day of the pandemic and the politics of 2020. In the show, they are mashed together on a wall, one collective mass screaming chorus. Rose’s work was greatly influenced by her experience at the Woman’s March in New York in January 2017 with Rosenwald. Creative signs were displayed everywhere.
“I will never forget a very old man holding up a piece of ordinary typewriter paper with a drawing of a shaky banana on it. It was prophetic of what was to come under Trump’s disastrous tenure.” Rose continues to use signs to comment on things that infuriate and intrigue her. Visit her on Instagram at @dawnarose4art.
Betsy Rosenwald created her series of protest sign paintings as an urgent response to the political and social chaos wrought by Covid-19 and the Trump presidency. The words and images are derived from the manic 2020 news cycle, and often quote former President Trump directly. For Rosenwald, who is a dual US/Canadian citizen, the news like watching a train wreck in slow motion. In a year marked by physical isolation, Rosenwald also shared the images as postcards mailed to friends and family. Visit her on Instagram at @betsyrose_1.
View online at http://330g.ca/Exhibitions22.html
Limited in-person viewing by appointment: marie@marielannoo.com