AS220 Galleries is excited to announce an Artist Talk and closing reception on Saturday February 23rd from 3-5pm with Jessica Rosner and Mike Morasse at the AS220 Project Space and Reading Room. This will be free and open to all as-well as a great time to talk with the artists about their exhibition. If you are unable to make it, exhibitions will remain on view through February 23rd. Check out our Facebook event for this Artist Talk, here.

Gallery hours: Wed-Fri 1-6pm, Sat 12-5pm & by appointment.

Words from Jessica Rosner about their gallery show titled “The History of Me” – “When I first signed up to have this exhibit I planned on showing work that honored my mother, as she once was. When I first signed up it was around three years ago and my mother had dementia. My dad died in 2007. When I first signed up Barack Obama was our president. Now Donald Trump is our president. When I first signed up I had a BIG idea. Then, things changed. I was offered an opportunity to show work about my mom much earlier, at a different gallery. When I first signed up to have this show, that gallery was open and my opening was well attended. That gallery is now closed. When I first signed up to have this show, my mom was alive though not at all the mom who was. Now she has died. I had to clean out the house of my parents and there was work I had done that hung on their walls from my years at college, and then my early years in Rhode Island, and on and on until recently. I brought some of the work home. Now it is mine again. This exhibit is part of the history of us, and the art history of me. This exhibit is the me that was, the me that is, and some of what I created in between. When I first signed up to show this work I was one person, and now, I am another.”

The inspiration for the “Zsa Zsa Project” series originated from a trip to the Catskills in 2012.A group of friends and I traveled to Mt.Tremper, NY, where we discovered a hotel called Kate’s Lazy Meadow. This wasn’t just any ordinary hotel, but one owned by Kate Pierson of the B-52’s. Much like the band’s quirky aesthetic, the hotel was decked in midcentury 1950s and 60s kitsch from floor to ceiling. In one of the bedrooms we found a rubber squeak toy cat that frightened one of my friends. We exiled the cat to the common area of our hotel suite and it became the subject of many jokes during the weekend. About a year after our journey to Mt. Tremper, I saw the same squeak toy cat in a little junk store in RI. I purchased it, named her Zsa Zsa, and posted a picture of her on Facebook. Friends on Facebook really seemed to love my photos of Zsa Zsa, so I continued to post more. After a while Zsa Zsa gained quite a following of fans and now has her own presence on Facebook and Instagram. She has been the subject of 3 calendars, and has been photographed all over the United States, Canada, and Europe. The “Zsa Zsa Project” integrates my love for unique and iconic locations, with kitschy-creepy-cute twist. Zsa Zsa just loves to make people smile!