Elis Rosas

Hand in Hand, acrylic paint and leaves on canvas, 8” x 10”

• Senior Exhibition
• April 26 to May 1, 2021
• Stan State Art Space

Join us for Stan State art student Elis Rosas' Looking Glass Exhibition. The Looking Glass exhibitions are a display of the artist's work at the Art space downtown gallery, viewable from the exterior sidewalk. On display 24/7!

Artist Statement:

The relationship between humans and the natural world has always been an interesting concept to me. We rely on nature; We can not survive without nature. Despite this, we’ve developed a strange relationship with nature where we try to control it. For example, we build structures in cities to keep us away from the wilderness, these structures would not exist without utilizing nature.

I started to construct these geometric shapes from the leaves of plants I grow. These geometric shapes took the form of architectural elements. The architectural elements are a commentary on the way humans bend nature to fit their needs. We often take materials from their natural place of origin and put them in foreign areas that better fit our needs. These shapes instead maintain their natural origins while still representing our control to mold them to our wants and needs.

 Nature will exist after we do. Even under all our control, there are things we can not stop or prevent or hide and that is part of what makes nature beautiful. I want my work to be a mechanism of reflection for the viewer’s relationship with nature and what their impact is. Because I make these pieces out of dead leaves as a form of recycling I want the audience to consider how they can reuse things as well as how important sustainability to protecting the environment.