Kit Rosenberg

Bio

Kit Rosenberg recently moved to San Francisco from Chicago, where he received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute. His primary interests lay in using unconventional materials to create works that bridge the gap between conceptual and representational art. He is currently enrolled in the graduate painting department at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Statement

These paintings came about partly as a result of my wrestling with the notion of equality. Should the fact that I come from a white, middle class background entitle me to certain rights and privileges that are unattainable to others? The reporter Edward R. Murrow was once quoted as saying that “everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.” While I believe that there's a degree of truth to this statement, there is a peculiar finality in the tone that I find troublesome. Are we not capable of empathy that transcends racial and economic boundaries?

With these works, I was interested in satirically contemporizing images culled from a bygone era. Given the notoriously fickle nature of American culture, I find that it becomes almost second nature to reassign meanings to images that are immediately recognizable as being from a specific time and place. For me, using satire is a way to exploit the fact that while the “look” of America has changed over the years, the struggle of trying to find one's place within it is as hard as ever.