A digital archive of Asian/Asian American contemporary art history

Roser, Ce

Other Names: Cecilia

Born in Philadelphia, Ce Roser has exhibited widely in solo and group shows as well as museums, and her work is included in a number of catalogs. She is known for her use of color and her mastery of bold gestures such as arching and angled lines. Her works, in oils, acrylics, watercolors, and tapestries, are dynamic with gestural energy and bands of color. Roser has said that it is for others to say what tradition her work belongs to, but the “intense, saturated” watercolors of Emil Nolde have influenced her and she feels strongly for Monet, “who transformed nature into paint.” From Hans Uhlmann, the leading German sculptor whom she studied under at the Berlin Fine Arts Academy, she learned the importance of abstraction “not as something imposed on reality but drawn from it.” Roser also studied with the Japanese calligrapher Hidai during his visit to New York. In considering her own Asian ancestry, Roser’s contact with Hidai helped establish her own place within an
Eastern sensibility toward nature, with a training and interest in Western Art.

The increased use of white in her paintings is a translation of sunlight on the Hudson that she sees from her studio windows. But rather than an empty, flat glare of the river’s surface there is a bold interplay of this painted light among its fellow colors. Her imagery is not preconceived, but develops organically from within the process of painting.
“One creates the painting and also the time in which to paint. My life is a constant observation of color, form, texture and movement. A studio on the Hudson River results in images from the river, the park, the fireworks, the ships appearing in my paintings. Fleeting, ambiguous, creative sparks become concrete when grasped and retained in memory. They become paintings.” -Ce Roser (From essay by Lane Dunlop, Ingber Gallery.)

Gallery of Selected Works