I absolutely love resin. Don’t tell anyone, but resin is perhaps my favorite art medium. I first saw it used extensively back in 2003 in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle exhibition at the Guggenheim. That show is still a top ten, all-time, art experience for me.

I walked into Betty Cunningham’s gallery, and fell in love with Mia Westerlund Roosen’s work. I had not heard of Roosen, but this is her 5th solo show at the gallery. I left with two catalogs in hand (and I want the other three), and am a new diehard fan.

“Mia Westerlund Roosen emerged as a sculptor in the late 1960’s, when Minimalism was the dominant artistic movement. She chose the organic over the industrial and geometric, engaging with the language of the human body both physically and emotionally.” (Betty Cunningham)

The gallery is beautiful, and a perfect setting to look down at these five sculptures. The color of resin is just part of the resin allure for me, but these pieces are particularly dreamy. I really wanted to touch them.

“Today’s current events have brought a new, chilling side to Westerlund Roosen’s recent work. Included in this exhibition are five rectangular, box-like sculptures, simply titled Box I thru V, installed in a procession across the lower gallery. All are approximately the same size and share the media of epoxy resin— Westerlund chose the resin for its “more seductive, more vulnerable and luxurious quality.” Each box, however, is distinguished by a different skin-toned shade and an individual interior, each of which convey a different message (a taught grid, a severed cut, a quiet blanket, etc.). In the upper gallery stand Column I and Column II: one eight feet tall and the other nine. Both are created with polyester resin, flannel, and steel. They are translucent and fragile, again conveying a vulnerability that contrasts the world in which Westerlund Roosen created them.” (Betty Cunningham)

If you have made it to the end of this post, you get to see the Matthew Barney poster that has had a permanent spot on my wall since 2003. I’m not normally an art show poster type of gal, but have always loved this one.