Avia Rose Ramm
SDSU Award Residency
June 19th to July 18th 2020

About the Exhibition:
Unable to communicate through words or spoken language, my pieces work to create a visual aid for the thoughts in my head. Specifically focusing my depression and anxieties, and ideas of qualia and synesthesia. My primary medium is oil, but as of late I have been exploring digital art and animation to communicate these things as well. I take inspiration from the Baroque and Rococo art periods for my color palettes. The intense chiaroscuro and the flushed- out faces help to create this narrative of being in a nervous state and often feeling embarrassed. My work is often a figurative representation of myself, taken out of a worldly context. The viewer is looking at me in my head, how I see myself. I often use dirt, hair, and various mediums in combination with oil to give a new way to look at my work. It is representational, but not completely, there is something off about it and I encourage viewers to look closer and at times touch it. What goes in the mind can be chaotic, and I make my pieces to represent and cope with that for anyone who can relate and for those who don’t understand.

About the Artist:
In her work Avia Rose aims to portray vulnerability and the melancholy of living through a fidgety relationship between herself and animals. She takes elements from the Renaissance, and the Rococo art periods, as well as her Catholic upbringing and integrates into them her work to address personal issues of depression and future healing. Rose uses the depiction of animals, most often sheep, unicorns, and snakes, in contrast to their use in the Christian religion in order to subvert the meaning attached to them. Her primary medium is oil, she was born and raised in SD and received her BA in Studio arts from SDSU.