GYAN SHROSBREE

The closet is my safe space
my home base
my fashion place
my positivity chamber
my reflection pool
my field of all possibilities

I find my power in clothing. My emotional landscape has always manifested in dress. I arrange things in the language of outfits: dressing the canvas/dressing the body.

We dress our bodies for many reasons: need, practicality, personality, expression, protection; clothing as armor—protection from the elements, promoting empowerment, strength and confidence.

My work is rooted in painting and its history. I am strongly influenced by twentieth century painting and modernism, but I am actively reconstituting that history through a contemporary, intersectional feminist lens. I use humor and the body as tools for communication and a container for that conversation. Body language, as well as costume and clothing, can take the edge off while remaining powerful. Repetition functions as a means to accumulate visual information and escalate the dissemination of the images. Flattening the space of the painting opens up the possibilities of abstracting the recognizable. The more you say something, the more it creates new information, the more you introduce the possibilities of translation. Memory plays a role in all of this whether it be memory from another time or a memory from a previous mark on the wall.

Through the act of making, the ideas emerge. A low stakes, generative attitude results in a feeling of freedom and allows the work to take shape in an unattached, delightfully free space. The result is the accumulation of many works that can meet up in a modular way allowing for many iterations and fluidly shifting compositions.

Gyan Shrosbree received her B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, and her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has had recent solo and two-person exhibitions at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Laisun Keane, Boston, MA; JEFF, Marfa, TX; Wrong Gallery, Marfa, TX; Ola Studio, Pound Ridge, NY: NX.IX Gallery, Detroit, MI; Haus Collective, San Antonio, TX; Grapefruits, Portland, OR; Grand View University, Des Moines, IA; Yellow Door Gallery, Des Moines, IA; Ripon College, Ripon, WI; Lovey Town Space, Madison, WI; and The Iowa Arts Council and State Historical Museum, Des Moines, IA. Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Tappeto Volante, Brooklyn, NY; Personal Space,Velejo, CA; Drake University, Des Moines, IA; Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL; Cleve Carney Art Gallery, Glen Ellyn, IL; Ground Floor Gallery, Nashville, TN; The Woskob Family Gallery, State College, PA; NYSRP, Brooklyn, NY; and Artstart, Rhinelander, WI. Gyan has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell, Yaddo, The Vermont Studio Center, Two Coats of Paint, and The Maple Terrace. Recent publications featuring her work include Yale University Radio, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, New American Painting, Egomania Magazine,The Coastal Post, Inertia Studio Visits, Precog Magazine, and Maake Magazine. Shrosbree is Associate Professor of Art and Director of the BFA in Visual Art at MIU. She teaches painting, drawing, and upper level studio and seminar courses in the BFA, MA, and MFA programs. She lives and works in Fairfield, Iowa.