Dion Rosina (1991) begins by making collages and then picks up a brush to paint. His folder with cuttings contains images of people, sculptures, mythological creatures, and artworks. For selecting the images he is guided by his feelings, not by a theme. He subsequently manipulates the cuttings and puts them together, thus combining various contexts and historical periods. By alternating the images with figurative and abstract elements, he arrives at a visually coherent whole. As his approach has become more intuitive over time, the works sometimes contain a quality that cannot be clearly described, or in any case raises questions, inviting the spectator to find out more about the characters that have been brought together.
To Rosina, working intuitively goes hand in hand with concrete references. The work Cosmogram (2023), for instance, features a 14th-century Yorùbá mask, an object that, despite of its makers unbelievable skilfulness, is not considered part of the canon of art history. “I am always searching for histories you will not read about in regular text books. The great thing about this age of information we are living in today is that these stories can now be retrieved — you just have to look for them yourself.” The technique of making collages is helpful in this process. It gives him something to hold unto while determining which image he wants to transfer to the canvas. As a result, Rosina’s work is an amalgamation of images as much as specific histories.
Text: Jorne Vriens
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang