HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

HALSEY MCKAY is pleased to present the first solo show of paintings by Leipzig, Germany-based artist Christoph Roßner. An extension of his recent exhibition, Oblomow, at the Leonhardi-Museum in Dresden, Bright Eyes, Dirty Hair, serves as a second act, with both new paintings and seminal works from the show, exhibited in the US for the first time.

In a borderland between representation and abstraction, depiction and association, Christoph Roßner captures his motifs. Exaggerations, gaps and voids complete his ambiguous compositions, and raze the hierarchy of foreground and background, inside and out. With an affinity for still life, landscape, and other classical subjects, Roßner’s pictures spin outlandish narratives beyond naturalistic representation. The artist makes use of a staged incapacity: figures appear in childlike reduction, proportions are grossly distorted, emblematic objects are abstracted and extrapolated, perspective is exaggerated beyond any one vantage point. Finding inspiration in his surrounding environment and the arrangement of objects such as vases, lamps, knives, and things invented, Roßner uses painting to create an atmosphere of concentrated tranquility, otherworldliness, and melancholia.

CHRISTOPH ROßNER received his BFA at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, 2006 and his MFA at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. Recent museum and institutional exhibitions include Oblomow (solo), Leonhardi-Museum, Dresden, DE, Heft eins (with Jakob Flohe), FAK Foerderverein aktuelle Kunst, Münster, Anonyme Zeichner, Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include, Gewinner & Verlierer, dst.galerie, Münster, DE, two artists you should know (w/Lucie Freynhagen), Zygote Press, Cleveland. Group exhibitions include, Feedback of Desire (w/Ted Gahl & Shara Hughes), Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, Société, C.Rockefeller Center, Dresden, WIN/WIN Ankäufe der Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, Halle 14, Leipzig, ALL STAR CAST, Galerie Baer, Dresden, Habeas Corpus, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY. Roßner has received several awards and residencies including Förderstipendium Talentschmiede, Dresden, Zygote Press Residency, Cleveland, Heimspiel – Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen Scholarship. His work is in the public collections of Kunstfond, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt, Sächsische Landes-und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden. Roßner is represented by Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco and dst.galerie, Munster, Germany.