Artist Spotlight: Jeremy Wilson

Casey Wilson
Contributing Writer

Fourth-year Jeremy Rosen’s dual major in English and graphic design as well as his interest in songwriting, has led him to approach art as a dialogue. For Rosen, art is a place where the written and the visual go hand-in-hand, inspiring each other and adding to each other’s meaning in an almost symbiotic relationship.

“I’m definitely inspired by visual work with the music I write and vice versa, though it probably shows up more in music,” Rosen said.

An example he gives is of Alphonse Mucha, a painter during the art nouveau movement known for his intricate illustrations of extravagant women with ornate backgrounds. Rosen said that Mucha has been a major inspiration for his work, both visual and written, though their styles don’t have much overlap.

“A lot of his stuff was basically advertising for various companies, but it was very beautiful, fine art-oriented, and some of his work has definitely influenced the way I approach my projects,” Rosen said of his experience with Mucha.

In terms of written inspiration, Rosen counts Bob Dylan among his biggest influences. “I’m inspired by the avant-garde nature of his work and the political and social overtones, but I like to think that I have my own voice too,” Rosen said.

He went on to explain the importance of message in art, something that Dylan dealt with greatly in his music. Rosen himself focuses on themes relating to sexuality and gender in order to create art with purpose rather than art for the sake of art.
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In conversation with Rosen, the conveyed message through art was a topic that came up often.When discussing where the line exists between an audience’s healthy deviation from the artist’s intended message, the ambiguity of it was clear, even for someone who deals with this conundrum daily in his work.

He explained how you can’t control the interpretation of the audience, but when its contradictory the artist is doing something wrong and needs to fix the problem. This self-awareness is no easy task, but one that Rosen feels is completely necessary to successfully create a useful piece of art.

Another theme that Rosen feels to be more implicit than explicit in his art is the City of Dayton. As a Dayton native, Rosen has a lot of experience from which to pull. Two of his written works, a short story called “Silver Domes in the Sun” and a poem called “Some Corners Are Black,” both earned him a spot in Orpheus, UD’s Literary and Art Magazine, and, further, both take place right here in Dayton. They show the complexity of life in the city and defy the single story that is often told, with “Some Corners Are Black” specifically dealing with “a personal reflection on the psychological layers of different people” as a major theme.
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In his visual work, Rosen’s Dayton roots are a bit more visible. Like the recent poetry scroll he made of local poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, an important voice in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rosen also recently created a typographical poster detailing a Dayton community member’s story. Rosen’s assigned community member raised his granddaughter, who went on to create a rowing club for girls.

The goal of her endeavor was to create a program to develop community building, which numerous studies have shown leads to increased academic success. For this project, Rosen put together a poster using the written words of this story to form an image of girls rowing.

This allowed Rosen to combine the two art forms he tends to focus on, something he would like to explore more and one that created a new challenge for him: telling a story that was not his own.

As Rosen grows as an artist and develops his own unique voice, two things will likely remain constant. First, he will strive to continue to make art for a purpose, to send a message that he finds important and worthwhile. Though the message may change and develop over time, his goal will remain the same: to create awareness through beautiful and thought-provoking pieces.

Second, Dayton will continue to inspire his work. Though he hopes to move away after graduation, his life will always be rooted in the experiences he had in his childhood as well as his college years in this city. Look out for Jeremy Rosen’s musical performances on Thursday Night Live, campus canvases and various open mic nights throughout the city.

Photos Courtesy of Jeremy Rosen