With graphite, acrylic, gouache, and colored pencil, the exhibition imagines moments of tension and transition; on the precipice of becoming. The works expand on Stages of Fallout, an ongoing project begun in 2019 exploring the aesthetic language surrounding architectures of “safety” (bunkers, bomb shelters, separation barriers, and the home) and their physical and psychological effects. In Tohu va-Vohu, Rose explores what happens after “fallout”—what space remains for potential, growth, and change? What does this moment of tension look like?

The exhibition borrows its title from the Hebrew Biblical phrase found in Genesis (1:2): “Tohu” (formless) and “va-Vohu” (void), describing the state of the earth before the creation of light. Interpretations of the phrase vary from those believing it is meant to describe a tumultuous state of chaos and disaster, to those who believe it was simply a state, neither good nor bad, as the human concepts of “good” and “evil” did not yet exist. Whatever the meaning, Tohu va-Vohu presents a flicker of possibility.

In exploring these themes, Rose utilizes various symbols, including the crater (representing the aftermath of impact, a black hole, or alternately, an opening for something new), and the grid (acting as an organizing principle in the “mapping” of space, and as an unpredictable, ever-expanding spiral galaxy). The works in the exhibition present these states both in the micro of the everyday, and the expandant macro of the imagination, with imagery that is paradoxically grounded and celestial.

Adam Liam Rose

Adam Liam Rose was born in Jerusalem in 1990. He was a fellow at the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ AIM Program, The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program, and the Art & Law Program. Rose was awarded artist residencies at the Fire Island Artist Residency (Fire Island, NY), Triangle Arts Association (Brooklyn, NY), ISCP (Brooklyn, NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, MI), A-Z West: Institute of Investigative Living (Joshua Tree, CA), among others. His publication Between the Bars (Genderfail Press, 2021) is in the artist’s book collection of the MoMA Library, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, PRATT Institute, and The Frick Fine Arts Library in Pittsburgh. Rose received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (’12) and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (’17). He joined as co-director at artist-run gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects in 2019. Rose lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.