* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Rosemarie Fiore received her BA from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has attended residencies at Art Omi International Artists Residency Program, Yaddo, Skowhegan, The MacDowell Colony, Roswell Foundation AIR Program, Saltonstall Foundation AIR Program, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Bronx Museum (AIM Program). Her works on paper are made by exploding and containing live fireworks, resulting in bursts of saturated color that are overlaped and collaged into abstract compositions.
Rosemarie explains the works by saying, “my drawings are created by containing and controlling firework explosions. I bomb blank sheets of paper with different fireworks including color smoke bombs, jumping jacks, monster balls, rings of fire, and lasers. As I work, I create imagery by controlling the chaotic nature of the explosions in upside-down containers. When the paper becomes saturated in color, dark and burned, I take it back to my studio and collage blank paper circles onto the image to establish new planes and open up the composition. I then continue to bomb the pieces. These actions are repeated a number of times. The final works contain many layers of collaged explosions and are thick and heavy.”
"I love how Rosemarie draws with Fireworks—she controls what she can and leaves the rest to the explosions. Now that is action painting!"