Rosemarie Chiarlone - Imprints

March 11 - May 16, 2022

WAAM is pleased to present the studio archives of Miami-based artist Rosemarie Chiarlone. The exhibition Imprints takes us on a journey of the artist's studio practice from the 1990s to the present and illustrates Chiarlone's experimentation with design, textual imagery, materiality, and structural forms. To Imprint, is to mark or stamp or make an impression. The nature of an imprint is itself subject to change, as, over time, an imprint can fade, erode or disintegrate. Chiarlone alludes to the ephemerality of the physical and the psychological through visual exploration and deconstruction of language. Textual landscapes on paper, hand-made books, textiles, and organic materials present the viewer with maze-like poetic excursions. In her hand-made books, letters are delicately perforated to form graphic images in relief. Often made in collaboration with poet Susan Weiner, each book unfolds to reveal emblematic words that reference gender, political and social issues. Whether sewn, perforated, or punctured, each word is imbued with a dynamic agency that contains multiple meanings. Chiarlone’s books deftly challenge conventional formats and function on multiple levels including sculpture and installation.

The exhibition includes a selection of books, works on paper, documentation, printed materials, and ephemera. We see the artist’s early interests in fusing book-making techniques with textiles in To Live the Dress, a fabric-bound book laden with dress-making patterns, and To Dress, which is an homage to the youthful play of “dress up”. We also catch a glimpse into Chiarlone’s studio archives. Sketches, paper studies, patterns, and fabric samples illustrate not only the artist’s process and experimentation within the book arts tradition but also point to how she has innovatively redefined how audiences engage with the form and function of books. The exhibition is on view at WAAM at Dimensions Variable from March 11 to May 7, 2022. The exhibition opens on March 11, from 6 to 9 pm.

Rosemarie Chiarlone studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at Florida International University with a BFA and a Master’s degree in the arts. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally.  Her works have most recently been on view at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA and the Center for Book Arts in New York, NY.   She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Galerie Verein Berliner Kunstler, Berlin, Germany; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; University of Gloucestershire, England; University of Kyoto, Japan; Universidad de Costa Rica and the Museo de Artsy Diseno Contemporaneo, San Jose, Costa Rica; McMullen Museum of Art, Boston, Massachusetts;  Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL;  Art and Culture