River Rosenbaum

Artist Statement

I am a multidisciplinary artist working exclusively with physical media, including graphite, oil paint, oil pastel, collage, ceramics, and found materials. My practice is rooted in touch, repetition, and material resistance, and I intentionally work outside digital processes to foreground slowness, presence, and the intelligence of the hand.

Across media, my work explores survival, disability, care, and ritual. I am drawn to marks that carry pressure and time—smudged graphite, layered pigment, stitched or assembled fragments, surfaces that show use rather than conceal it. Whether the work takes the form of drawing, painting, object, or vessel, it functions as a record of endurance and adaptation rather than resolution.

Process is central to my practice. I work intuitively, allowing materials to push back and guide the final form. Imperfection, revision, and visible labor are preserved as part of the work’s meaning, reflecting bodies and lives shaped by experience rather than refinement. Collage and layering recur as methods of assembling memory, while drawing and mark-making act as both grounding and insistence.

By working across tactile media, I am interested in how meaning is carried through material—how objects and images can serve as witnesses, holding what has been endured while remaining functional, intimate, and present.