Will Rogan ”Every flower needs a name”

2021. 10. 17 Sun - 11. 14 Sun

MISAKO & ROSEN is pleased to announce “Every flower needs a name” an exhibition by Will Rogan. Rogan previously lived and worked in San Francisco; however, he is presently based in Vermont. A selection of Rogan’s exhibitions includes “MATRIX 253” at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (2014), “A Twice Lived Fragment of Time”, UC Irvine, CA (2013) and “Curtain”, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, Belgium (2012). In addition to his exhibitions with MISAKO & ROSEN, Rogan was included in the Mori Art Museum exhibition, “All About Laughter : Humor in Contemporary Art” at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2007).

Will Rogan’s latest exhibition somehow relates to his interest in magic and the sleight of hand – though not for the sake of entertainment; but, rather, as something intimately experiential, as an example of the genuinely transformative power that art can have when one allows it to function. Here, one aspect of a sort of alchemy is the transformation of sculpture into painting; the theater of this particular gallery serving it’s purpose well – not just in terms of the physical space; but, also in terms of the aesthetic context (Kaoru Arima, Margret Lee, etc…having “become painters” throughout the course of their relationship with the gallery). Always adept at drawing upon the found object to generate meaning beyond it’s initial life; here, Rogan aestheticizes his material to suggest the quality of painting without crossing a line into the painterly; contrasting textures, shifting perspectives and various stages of vertical suspension all, in these rather particular works, call to mind the space of painting. Repeating forms with suggestive conceptual content – keys, fingers, animal shapes continue to carry a similar weight as representations have in Rogan’s past works; however, the present exhibition serves to ground the viewer firmly in place – facing a body of painting.