Rose Marasco: Camera Lucida

What Makes It Great? / Featured / August 9, 2023

By Suzanne Révy

Part II

I hit the photography jackpot last week on a day trip to Portland and Brunswick, Maine! We are excited to present three reviews over three days this week:

Yesterday, I reviewed “Drawn to Light” at the Portland Museum of Art, a survey of the educators who have taught at the Maine Media Workshops and College over the past fifty years. Today, I review Rose Marasco’s “Camera Lucida” at the University of New England’s art gallery, showcasing the breadth of the artist’s creative process that has mined domestic and feminist ideas. Tomorrow, please return for my review of an extraordinary show at the Bowdoin Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, “People Watching: Contemporary Photography since 1965,” which brings documentary, studio, conceptual and even landscape photography together to celebrate humanity, drawn from the College’s impressive photography holdings.

“Rose Marasco: Camera Lucida” is on view at the University of New England’s Portland campus art gallery through October 8th, 2023. A book signing is planned for September 14th from 5 to 7pm.

“Blue Objects” by Rose Marasco, 2018, from the Objects: Visible Spectrum series, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

“Peeler” by Rose Marasco, 2020-21, from the Utensils series, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

Silhouetted household objects or utensils on fields of color in one grouping and abstracted into black and white in another section open an exhibit that brings together decades of playful arrangements into a cohesive conversation. Beyond the formal studies of utensils, Marasco explores the private lives of women through found diaries in her “Domestic Objects” series. Her still-life arrangements incorporate diaries that are each opened to the same day of the year. All are written in long hand, some boast detailed passages while others reveal quick notations. One entry states, “cried intermittently all day” offering a glimpse into the interior life of an early 20th century woman. Taking a cue from the writing, Marasco placed items of food or kitchen tools in each piece, elevating the quotidian lives of these anonymous writers in carefully constructed compositions that dignify the humanity of the words.

“Egg Diary” by Rose Marasco, 1994, from the Domestic Objects series, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

Marasco also plays with projections in the interior space of a Greek Revival house she bought at auction decades ago. Weaving in art making during the many renovations that needed to be done, she graced the kitchen cabinets with carefully coiffed and made-up faces of fashion models, creating a kind of “live” collage that she then photographed. The ethos of the work recalls the mid-century modern era when gender roles were far more restrictive, and the pressures on women to breezily manage house, husband and children in a skirt and high heels plunged many into depths of despair.

“Projection Number 10” by Rose Marasco, 2005-2008, from the Projections series, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

“NYC Pinhole: Columbus Park” by Rose Marasco, 2011-14, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

Not all of Marasco’s work is strictly interior. She presents two colorful pinhole images of Manhattan in the summer, and several landscapes that she pairs cleverly with cameraless scanned still-life, injecting a sense of humor into her work. In one, she presents a landscape that recalls the spare work of Harry Callahan’s studies of snow, which she then mimics with an arrangement of hairpins on a white background. It is a delightful visual pun that provocatively challenges modernism’s highbrow notions around form and function and a witty use of common knickknacks.

“No. 1 of 7” by Rose Marasco, from the Mimics series, 2019-2020, courtesy of the artist, Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Portland, ME and OSMOS, New York.

Throughout all the work, Marasco takes a penetrating look at the internal struggles and pressures that many women face, presenting them in diverse ways, while remaining visually coherent across her whole oeuvre. Her whimsical experiments and prolific career prove that far reaching worlds can be discovered within the confines of our private spheres.

This retrospective coincides with the publication of Marasco’s new monograph At Home published by OSMOS books. There will be a gallery talk and book event with the artist on September 14th from 5 to 7pm.

For more information: https://library.une.edu/art-galleries/home/portland-campus/exhibits/

To buy her book: https://www.osmos.online/books