Harper’s is pleased to present Painting Fire, a solo exhibition of work by Athens, GA-based artist Art Rosenbaum. Co-organized by Tif Sigfrids and Ridley Howard, the exhibition consists of ten paintings made between 1982 and 2021 and eight recent oil pastel works on paper. In lieu of a formal reception, Painting Fire will open Friday, January 14, 12–8pm, at Harper’s Los Angeles. For over sixty years, Art Rosenbaum has been creating narrative paintings that spin idiosyncratic references into swirling American landscapes. Overarching visual energy gives way to interconnected mini-dramas that seemingly inform every pocket of space. Employing bold colors and vibrant underpainting, the frenetic interlocking brushwork maintains a taut balance between the graphic and the painterly in an expressive style that is twentieth-century American, yet echoes charged works by the likes of Luca Signorelli, El Greco, and Max Beckmann. Within the paintings, endlessly complex figures and forms lead the eye on meandering paths, offering a glimpse into the rich life Rosenbaum inhabits as an artist, art educator, and esteemed folklorist. What began with an interest in performing traditional folk songs evolved over time into a serious documentary endeavor, inspiring Rosenbaum to travel across the US recording musicians and releasing numerous albums through Smithsonian Folkways and the Dust to Digital record labels. A number of the subjects he recorded appear in paintings presented in this exhibition, including Abner Jay in Reenactment (1995), Howard Finster in Circles (1989), and gospel singer Naomi Bradford at the center of the diptych My Mind Will Never Be “Aisy” II (1986). The introduction into imaginative landscapes of these figures and others—such his former student and Athens darling Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Circles (1989)—results in the sort of windy storytelling characteristic of Southern folklore. Painting Fire (1993), for which the exhibition takes its name, was inspired by Rosenbaum’s presence in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots. Rosenbaum inserts himself in a mirror, holding a video camera, while an aluminum rod enters the scene from outside the frame with a paintbrush taped to its end, loaded with cadmium orange paint. Themes of violence, interrupted love, and the artist as observer are essential to his work. Rosenbaum’s figures contain psychological tension, with elongated limbs, pronounced expressions, twisting torsos, and animated hands. Rigid soldiers in “A Man Has Been Here a Long Time, Dilmus Hall, Artist” (1986) are juxtaposed with the self-taught Athens native who made allegorical works out of concrete and wood. While at first his paintings seem engrossed in regional folklore, calling to mind the Social Realists and Regional painters of the Depression era, Rosenbaum's works contain a myriad of perspectives and techniques that ultimately showcase a defiance of limitation and ceaseless outpouring of human curiosity. Written by Tif Sigfrids and Ridley Howard