Christian Rosa

Ibid Projects, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Saatchi Gallery, Pangaea: New Art From Africa and Latin America, 2014, p. 142-3, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the background of the original tends more towards beige. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are some handling marks around the edges. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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Christian Rosa’s innovative paintings mix calligraphy, diagrams, abstraction and figuration to create powerful compositions upon which shapes and lines dance and mingle to create a beguiling whole. His gestural style celebrates and renders moments of creation and destruction upon the canvas, there is no pre-determined plan before Rosa begins a painting, rather his own deeply spontaneous approach and imagination serves to draw together narratives and order from the varied elements before him. Akin to a primordial soup, the painting becomes a breeding ground of newly evolved gestures stemming from Rosa’s subconscious, the viewer is invited to observe the work and grapple with the internal logic the artist bestows upon the canvas.

Born in Brazil and growing up in Vienna, we can see the old world and new world collide within Rosa’s practice. The urgency and colour of Latin America along with its vibrant street art heritage mingle with the refined mannerism of central Europe to create something entirely new and alive. In Oh Fuck we are presented with a raw canvas bearing the fruits of Rosa’s gestural abstractions. We see markings of varying thickness tapering across the canvas while looping back on themselves alongside small bursts of colour that draw the eye back and forth. A great sluggish, spray-painted smear dominates the lower right of the composition contrasted against the orderly, geometric line in the opposite corner. Such playful contrasts are evident all over the painting as each disparate element jostles for attention and communicates with its surroundings. Its overall effect is not unlike a topographical study with the gestures as landmarks within an encompassing wasteland. Each individual marking we see before us evokes a range of influences from Cy Twombly, Joan Miró and Wassily Kandinsky to Adolf Gottlieb and Hans Hartung, yet the overall effect of the work is unmistakably unique and personal to Rosa and his distinctive style.