Rosy Keyser
Rosy Keyser (b. 1974, Baltimore, MD) grew up in rural Maryland where she developed a sensational awareness of tools and materials in the outdoors. Keyser asks how we can propagate new beauty, new language, new structures, and new tools using the elastic language of painting. Through concrete processes involving improvisation, collage, and intuitive play, she negotiates the shifting relationships of creation and destruction and attendant sensuality and brutality that characterize nature. Her paintings lean towards a childlike wonder about transformation, aiming to recuperate the vibrant qualities of direct experience and how it is imprinted on us. The artist’s body and conceptual intent are equally visible in the configurations she plucks from the shared energetic field of human consciousness.
She earned her BFA at Cornell University in 1997 and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Keyser has shown extensively throughout the United States and Europe, including solo exhibitions at Maccarone (New York and Los Angeles), Peter Blum Gallery (New York), and Contemporary Fine Arts (Berlin, Germany). Group exhibitions include: Rosy Keyser & Eleanor Mikus, Parts & Labor, Beacon, NY; Painter Painter at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, and Pink Caviar at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark. Keyser’s work is held in the permanent collections of: the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and Zabludowicz Collection, London, England. Rosy Keyser was a Fall 2017 artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation (Marfa, TX) and a 2022 artist in residence at the Læsø AiR, Denmark.
Select Works
Select Exhibitions
Select Press
2021
O’Brien, John David. “Rosy Keyser at parrasch heijnen.” Artillery. print. Sept/Oct 2021.
MacAdam, Barbara. “Rosy Keyser on Sound, Collaboration, and ‘Arp 273’.” Art & Object, June, 2021.
2020
Maine, Stephen. “Artists Quarantine With Their Art Collections.” Hyperallergic, May 2, 2020.
2017
Buhe, Elizabeth. “Rosy Keyser.” Art in America, September 26, 2017.
2016
Elderton, Louisa. “Reviews: Rosy Keyser CFA/Berlin.” Flash Art, January - February 2016.
Nueuendorf, Henri. “Top 10 Shows on the LES and Surrounding Neighborhoods This Summer.” Artnet, July 4, 2016.
2015
Mac Adam, Alfred. “REVIEWS: NEW YORK.” Artnews, April, 2015.
Smith, Roberta. “Review: Rosy Keyser, “The Hell Bitch.” The New York Times, May 2015.
Munro, Cait. “10 Killer Quotes on Feminism and Painting.” Artnet, June 4, 2015.