Moon #16 Painting

Margo Rose’s dreamlike paintings set themselves the task of capturing the nature and geography of spaces both terrestrial, and extra-terrestrial. Merging elements of science fiction and surrealism, Rose takes cues from Color Field painters to highlight and exaggerate the other-worldliness of nature to bring her audience closer to her often dreamlike subjects. Ecological principles are central to Rose’s method, preferring to create her own materials from self-recycled sources where possible. For millennia and across Eastern and Western cosmological tradition, the moon has been aligned with the maternal. From the Greek goddess Selene, to Indigenous personifications of the moon as mother to the Earth, the symbolic celestial body has reflected human perceptions of the female body, ephemeral and untouchable. Margo Rose’s color-field inspired textured tondi are designed as symbols of feminine energy, planetary bodies that both demand, and resist tactile attention.