Val Rossman has been working as a professional artist for over 30 years. During her career she has had more than 21 one-person shows and been in numerous group shows in Philadelphia, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida and New York. She has won several prizes, including the Award for Excellence at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, and at the Cheltenham Art Center Annual Painting Show. In addition, she has been on the faculty of Main Line Art Center for the past 22 years as a teacher of abstract art and now teaches at Wayne Art Center and Woodmere Art Museum. She has lectured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and done a workshop at the River Arts Center in Vermont. Her work has also been seen on Bravo Cable Television.
Rossman’s work has been collected by both individual and corporate clients in the U.S. and abroad. Some of these include Blue Cross of Greater Philadelphia, AT&T, United Pacific Life Insurance, MasterCard International, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank, Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and Hebrew University.
Val Rossman has been creating drawings and paintings in her studio in Philadelphia for the last 30 years. Her work has gone through various stages, however, her wonderful sense of color combined with a lyrical and often whimsical mentality have always infused her drawings with a lush and personal aura. The combination of rich and unexpected hues and gestures with sometimes questioning formats give the work an unforgettable presence.
COLOR WORKS
"Life is always uncertain.
Out of a riot of lines, spaces and colors
comes a titillating surface that beckons
the viewer to relax and enjoy the journey.
Simplicity and density are woven together
in grafiti-esque drawings and paintings
saturated with luminous and rich harmonies."
— Julie Courtney, Independent Curator
The quote above was written over 15 years ago and still holds true. After 40 years of continuously creating art I often wonder what new insights I bring to my work. I tell my students that we each have our own ”circle” in life. As we grow and have many experiences we venture out of our personal circle, but always return to make our circle deeper and more varied; there are additions, ruts, grooves, colors and marks that enhance one’s space.
My art is a chaotic blend of chance and careful planning which is an apt metaphor for life. Each painting or pastel drawing is a map leading to an adventure of color, mark, and space. The making of the mark whether expressive, aggressive, lyrical or exuberant is crucial. There are references to nature but my primary interest is in capturing the feeling. I embrace the unpredictable interferences as interruptions to the luscious color and controlled lines. Taking risks as part of my creative process energizes my work and keeps it fresh and exciting.
Val Rossman's paintings and drawings are a blend of chance and careful planning; a process which the artist considers an apt metaphor for life. She says of her recent work,
"Each painting or pastel drawing is a map leading to an adventure of color, mark, and space. The making of the mark whether expressive, aggressive, lyrical or exuberant is crucial....I embrace the unpredictable interferences as interruptions to the luscious color and controlled lines. Taking risks as part of my creative process energizes my work and keeps it fresh and exciting."
Many of the atmospheric, nature-inspired pastels in the current exhibit are the result of a recent residency (Art in the Wilderness) in Aspen, Colorado which brought the artist directly into contact with an unfamiliar and untamed landscape. However, Rossman's primary interest is in capturing the feeling of a particular location, not the actual observation. In the pastels, soft but intense background colors recede into indefinable depths and are criss-crossed by subtle marks that bring the viewer back to the surface - marks that are reminiscent of jet-trails or cirrus clouds.
In addition to the pastels, Rossman is showing a series of bold, calligraphic acrylic paintings in which the expressive gesture of the artist is dominant. The paintings have an urban, graphic quality to them - reminding the viewer of the artist's roots at Tyler School of Art in the 1970's and the influence of other abstract painters such as Klee, Kandinsky, Frankenthaler, and Mitchell.
Regardless of the medium, there is always a sense of spontaneity in Rossman's work - the pastels and paintings seem controlled but are never overworked. She says of her process,
"My work always starts out very scribbly and free.... As I work, there is a conversation between me and the piece...with questions asked and answers given. It is very intuitive and organic. I love that process! I always know when a work is finished because it just feels like everything is in the right place. It is as if the work just grew out of the surface and always existed like that. There is nothing that is nudging at me to say that it doesn't belong. There is a perfect harmony within the piece."
Val Rossman’s paintings are spatially complex and visually exciting. Rectangular shapes of various sizes hover in front of, or are submerged behind other shapes. Sometimes the painted geometric forms are a solid color; sometimes transparent; and sometimes they seem to offer an opening or window to a world beyond. Patterns are suggested, truncated, and then unexpectedly reemerge in other places. Despite the controlled geometry of the individual elements, expressive brushwork runs freely over the surface, always asserting the hand and the presence of the artist. Elements of both the aesthetics of minimalist painting and abstract expressionism exist harmoniously side-by-side in these works. It is not surprising that the artist cites as one of her sources of inspiration the American tradition of quiltmaking, where disparate pieces of fabric from separate places are gathered and combined into a unified visual experience.
The unifying element in Rossman’s work is her sensitive use of color. Joseph Rishel, retired curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, wrote in the catalog for one of Rossman earlier exhibits, “…it's fun to see all her sophisticated manipulation of color.....There's a lot of exploration going on in a seemingly contained format.” Within Rossman’s chosen vocabulary of geometric shapes, patterns, and energetic calligraphy, color always predominates, lending a feeling of drama or quietude, depending on the artist’s palette choices. Rossman has said that she thinks, plays, and remembers in color and through these paintings, she brings the viewer into her color-world of memories and observations.
Sharon Ewing
Former Owner and Director of Gross McCleaf Gallery
I've known Val Rossman's work for some time, but not in a conventional manner. I mostly look at her witty and sensual pastels at a fairly oblique angle from the perspective of her husband's dental chair, a fellow who is as talented and charming in his own way as his wife, if I may indulge in double compliments.
Val went to Tyler at a magic moment in it's history in the mid-'70s. One can only speculate as to which aspect of that dynamic and wonderfully innovative moment set her most steadily on her path, particularly her love of pastel for which she has such a penchant and talent. And persistent she has been, since that time, exploring in a consistently paced manner, often fast and slow at the same time; the interaction of tone on surface, always with a sense of interaction between a gesture - skipping across the surface and/or flushing into it in broad swaths - and the field(s) it transforms.
She works these formulas - and I use the word in the spirit of the alchemists, not the mathematicians - with great invention. It's a very happy thing to watch. And it's fun to see all her sophisticated manipulation of color transported into pieces of aluminum (some tiny) in geometric panels, formal and lucid even as complicated as they get. There's a lot of exploration going on within a seemingly contained format.
Joe Rishel
Former Philadelphia Museum of Art Gisela and Dennis Alter,
Former Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900,
Former Senior Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection
and the Rodin Museum
Entering Val Rossman’s studio I was bowled over by the explosion of energy in the pastel drawings created by this seemingly mild mannered artist. I was not prepared for the cacophony of color and exuberant mark making that make up her latest body of work.
Rossman’s pastel works are a chaotic blend of chance and careful planning, a process she views as a metaphor for life. She has always been intrigued by color, and the choice sets the mood for each piece. Each drawing is a map leading us on an adventure of color, mark and space. What used to be lyrical explorations in gorgeous color and controlled line are now wild trips of intentional dissonance and frantic gestures. Her marks have become very aggressive and expressive. Val ‘Rossman is not afraid to go into dark places -
Rossman enjoys the immediacy of working in pastel. She becomes another element in the medium: chalk, paper, artist’s hand. Each work contains layer upon layer of pastel. She manipulates and massages the color into the paper, and rubs more color over that. She draws and makes marks. Ghosts of lines peek through. The archeology emerges. She may do something unexpected-a gash here, a slash of “ugly” color there.
Her basic vocabulary is a cross cultural dictionary full of symbols, like petroglyphs from ancient cultures. There are zigzags, spirals, and letters, the very basis for man’s earliest communication. A checkerboard represents a homey environment where people play games. A surprising red fork and spoon illustrate the simple pleasures of life, like a meal with the family. Dots are like footprints, and represent travel. A sense of whimsy has always been evident in Rossman’s work, but these new pieces have a rawness that speaks to a more aggressive and assertive side.
Rossman now takes risks that she never took before. With maturity comes a confidence, a “joie de vivre” that is fun, frivolous, and very exciting.
Julie Courtney - Independent Curator
One of the rewards for keeping a gallery going for a long time and certainly one of my greatest pleasures as an art dealer is the opportunity of working with the same artists over an extended period of time. I feel privileged to have been a close witness to Val Rossman’s steady development as an artist during the past sixteen years as evidenced by her seven solo shows here. In that time she has developed a clear and authentic voice, establishing herself as an important regional artist.
When I first saw her work she had just changed from painting in oils to making pastels her major media. Over the years she has developed personal ways of using the chalk that imparts a signature luminosity to her work. She has developed and constantly refines a personal vocabulary of forms that are nonobjective and are not meant to be read symbolically. Her work has the lyricism and cadences of visual music.
This body of work that includes oil paintings on metal sheets, represents another leap forward in imagery as swell as technique. Rossman’s usual forms seem to be dissolving into cascades of repeated marks, more evocative of force fields than of individual shapes floating in space, more reminiscent of the over-all feeling of Pollack than the intentionally directed compositions of Gorky. The lyricism remains and is energized with a delightful, pulsating energy.
Richard Rosenfeld
Owner/Director
The Rosenfeld Gallery