ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s solo “Descartes Died in the Snow” featured in On Paper Journal of The Washington Print Club

Available Artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s solo exhibition of experimental printmaking “Descartes Died in the Snow”

Video credit: Jarrett Hendrix

Morton Fine Art is pleased to present Descartes Died in the Snow, a solo exhibition showcasing work by Washington, D.C.-based artist Rosemary Feit Covey, on view from March 3–March 31, 2022. Marking both the debut of new work and the reactivation of older works, the exhibition uncovers new dimensions within the artist’s vast oeuvre. Taken as a whole, this collection of work illuminates the fragility of life on our embattled planet, recognizing the catastrophic ecological losses that mark our current era while turning a hopeful eye towards altogether new horizons.

Covey’s current focus on environmental concerns is informed by 20 years of collaborations with scientists, during which biology, ecology, and mortality have remained steady themes of the artist’s practice. The past three decades have seen the artist rise as an established wood engraver, followed in recent years by an expansion towards mediums including experimental printmaking and mixed media. From the replication of the printmaking process to the carving of the printing block, Covey’s works attend to personal analogies of physical and emotional fortitude; through the manipulation of absence and presence, lightness and darkness, the artist evokes a darker psychological sensibility within complex figural representations.

While maintaining the artist’s long-standing engagement with psychologically challenging—and oftentimes troubling—subject matter, the diversification of Covey’s mediums highlights the artist’s continued innovation in the arenas of both technique and narrative. In a titular nod to the life and work of 17th century philosopher René Descartes, Descartes Died in the Snow reflects Covey’s own artistic philosophy, that of art-as-exploration. In admiration of Descartes’ unfettered curiosity and his resulting great lengths of inquiry, Covey draws parallels with the experimental potential of artistic practice. “We artists can apply logic and intellectual research, then throw it all to the winds, allowing for alchemy and the unconscious to cross-pollinate with the natural sciences as we create,” Covey says.

Moved by recent climate disaster scenarios in South Africa—the country of her birth—Covey’s most recent work responds to the fleeting nature of news cycles and the failure of journalistic channels to manifest sustained public awareness of such crucial issues. Having witnessed this subject matter quickly fall from the front pages, Covey understands her work to serve as an enduring reminder of environmental crises within a global consciousness. Of this profound responsibility as an artist in the present moment, Covey affirms, “In this manner, I am committed to using my skills to portray this delicate balance as we reach a precipice.”

Through delicate lines that comprise masterful compositions, Covey’s work operates at the intersections of beauty and terror, depicting melancholy aesthetics of mourning. From a mass of opalescent strokes, Covey’s Broken Earth (2020) pictures a heap of carcesses, inspired by Covey’s horror of an imagined parched earth. Elsewhere, blooms of pigment suggest oil spills, and falling petals hint at impending decay. Through a push and pull, characterized by sensorial enticement segueing into gripping existential inquiry, the artist’s foreboding imagery unmasks that which is hidden in plain sight.

ABOUT ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rosemary Feit Covey received degrees from Cornell University and the Maryland Institute College of Art, eventually relocating to Washington, D.C., where she currently lives and works. Covey has been represented by Morton Fine Art since 2010.

Covey has exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad, including group exhibitions at the National Collection of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Solo exhibitions of her work have been staged at The Butler Institute of American Art; The Delaware Contemporary; the International Museum of Surgical Science; and the Evergreen Museum at Johns Hopkins University. Works by the artist are held in more than forty major museum and library collections worldwide, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art; New York Public Library Print Collection; National Museum of American History; Harvard University; and the Papyrus Institute in Cairo, Egypt.

Across various mediums, Covey has been commissioned by General Electric Astro Space, the National Institute of Science, Georgetown University, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among other institutions and organizations. Covey’s literary illustrations have been commissioned and published by Simon & Schuster and William Morrow. She is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation National Fine Art Award, and was the 2007–2008 Artist-in-Residence at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Available Artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

New mixed media and experimental printmaking artworks by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY, Blossoms Fall, 2021, 16″x12″, mixed media and experimental printmaking on canvas

Rosemary Feit Covey was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In a career spanning three decades she has exhibited internationally and received countless awards. Ms. Covey is the recipient of both a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation National Fine Art Award. Ms. Covey’s work is in many major museum and library collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the New York Public Library Print Collection, the National Museum of American History, Harvard University and the Papyrus Institute in Cairo, Egypt. In 2007 a large retrospective of Ms. Covey’s science-related work was displayed at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago.

Ms. Covey was the recent recipient of a fellowship at Georgetown University Medical Center, as the 2007-2008 Artist-in-Residence. She has also held residencies in Bellagio, Italy and in Santa Ana, California and has had solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including Toronto, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Buenos Aires, Zurich and Geneva. Solo museum exhibitions include the Butler Museum of American Art and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts. Her work has been exhibited in countless group exhibitions including major exhibitions at the National Collection of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Most recently two pieces were shown at the Danforth Museum. Eric Denker, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Henry T. Hopkins, Director of the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Los Angeles have written comprehensive articles on Ms. Covey’s work.

Covey has been represented by Morton Fine Art since 2010.

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY, Yana’s Birds, 2021, 46″x30″, mixed media and experimental printmaking on canvas

Available artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

On view by appointment at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St NW #302, Washington, DC 20001

info@mortonfineart.com

(202) 628-2787 (call or text)

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s print “Quiet Desperation” currently on view at Katzen Arts Center at American University.

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s print “Quiet Desperation” currently on view at Katzen Arts Center at American University.

Grouping of artwork in Katzen Art Center’s exhibition “Good Form, Decorum, and in the Manner: Portraits from the Collections of the Washington Print Club Members” including ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s wood engraving, “Quiet Desperation”.

Photo credit: Katzen Arts Center

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s wood engraving “Quiet Desperation”

Courtesy of the Artist and Morton Fine Art

 

 

“Good Form, Decorum, and in the Manner: Portraits from the Collections of the Washington Print Club Members” features works ranging from the early masters of printmaking to contemporary artists. These prints question what it means to capture a person’s likeness across time and cultures.⁠

 

About  Katzen Arts Center:

Housed in the dynamic and multidisciplinary Katzen Arts Center, the American University Museum builds its programming on the strengths of a great college and great university. We focus on international art because American University has a global commitment. We show political art because the university is committed to human rights, social justice, and political engagement. We support the artists in our community because the university takes an active and responsible role in the formation of our contemporary art and culture.

We present exhibitions that mirror American University’s aspiration to be the premier Washington-based, global university. Our programming puts the best art of our region in a national and international context. Our collections enable us to present the art history of Washington, while our Kunsthalle attitude brings the most provocative art of our time to our place.

Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016

Tuesday – Sunday from 11am-4pm

Available artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

 

 

The Washington Post ~ In the galleries: Rosemary Feit Covey

Written by Mark Jenkins October 4, 2019

Rosemary Feit Covey

There’s a pleasing symmetry between what Rosemary Feit Covey depicts and how she depicts it. Most of the works in “The Dark Re-Imagined,” the Alexandria artist’s show at Morton Fine Art, begin with wood engraving. The white-on-black images are usually supplemented with painted colors and sometimes built up with thread or small found objects. But the incised lines are fundamental, and apt for conveying such hidden natural systems as a fish skeleton or a network of submerged fungi.

‘Amethyst Deceivers 11’ (2019) by Rosemary Feit Covey. Wood engraving, thread, painting on canvas, 36″x 48″ 

Feit Covey has worked with doctors and scientists — including at Georgetown University Medical School’s morgue — so her art is grounded in biological knowledge. Yet the works in this show are not mere illustrations. They attempt to convey the abundance of life, the inevitability of death and the link between the two. In such intricate compositions as the swirling “Fish,” the individual blurs into the collective, much as dead things are reabsorbed into living ones. Like a clump of black earth, Feit Covey’s pictures are dark but fecund.

 

Follow this link to view Available Artwork by Rosemary Feit Covey on MFA’s website.

 

Rosemary Feit Covey’s available work is stored on site at Morton Fine Art, stop by anytime during open hours or make an appointment to view these incredible creations up close in person.  Wednesday – Saturday : 12 – 5pm,  Sunday – Tuesday : by appointment Contact:  mortonfineart@gmail.com -or- (202) 628-2787.

 

 

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY’s solo “The Dark Re Imagined” opens Saturday 9/14/19

Inspired by evolutionary biology, ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY pushes the boundaries of printmaking in her solo exhibition “The Dark Re Imagined”. In this series of artworks she has collaborated with scientists and integrates fungus, lichens, animals, decay and broken insects.

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ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY The Dark Re Imagined September 14 – October 9, 2019 Opening Reception Saturday, September 14th from 2-6pm Artist Talk at 4pm EXHIBITION LOCATION Morton Fine Art 52 O St NW #302 Washington, DC 20001 HOURS Wednesday – Saturday 12pm – 5pm Sunday – Tuesday by appointment

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY, Just One Day 2019, 36″x24″, painting, found objects and plastic on canvas

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY, Amethyst Deceivers 11, 2019, 36″x48″, wood engraving, thread, painting on canvas

About The Dark Re Imagined My current work on fungus and lichens, broken insects and evolutionary biology is not scientific in the sense of medical illustration but a continuation of a life time artistically reacting to mortality’s hold on our subconscious. My earlier work was more overtly psychological. Now I glory in exploring texture and new methods of printmaking. After decades working alone I embrace collaboration. Working with other artists and scientists who all share passion for their chosen subjects and understand mine, they are generous in answering my questions with care and enthusiasm. As the young entomologist, Rebecca Cathleen Wilson told me in one of our many conversations, “we study insects because we love them but to do so we have to kill them, working with you gives them another life”. – ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY, 2019 Available artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY in her studio

About ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY Rosemary Feit Covey was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work is housed in over forty major museum and library collections worldwide, including Yale University Art Gallery, the New York Public Library Print Collection, the National Museum of American History, Harvard University, and the Papyrus Institute in Cairo, Egypt. In 2012 over five-hundred of her prints were acquired for the permanent collection of Georgetown University Library, Special Collections. She is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (Bellagio Italy), an Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation National Fine Art Award and a fellowship to Georgetown University Medical Center as the 2007-2008 Artist-in-Residence. Her solo museum exhibitions include the Butler Museum of American Art, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts and the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. In 2014, a retrospective of her prints, paintings and installation work was held at Johns Hopkins University’s Evergreen Museum. Her larger public art has been installed world wide, including at Burning Man and at Culture Summit 2017 in Abu Dhabi. Articles on her work have been featured in magazines including Art in America, Juxtapoz, and American Artist Magazine. She has fully illustrated books for Simon & Schuster and William Morrow as well as for fine art presses. While an artist in residence at Georgetown University Medical School, Feit Covey wrote one chapter and illustrated the text for the book, Maldynia: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Illness of Chronic Pain, published by CRC Press. Previously she worked with a brain tumor patient for three years chronicling his illness artistically. This work was featured on Studio 360, Public Radio International, and in articles for The Los Angeles Times and CR Magazine. Since 2017 she has collaborated with evolutionary biologist Paul Andrews working on a ground breaking book using evolutionary biology to understand depression and evaluate pharmacological and psychological treatments for depression. This work will be published by Oxford University Press in 2020 or 2021. An article on this work appeared in Sci-Art Magazine in 2018. Currently, she is working with two botanists and an entomologist who have greatly aided in inspiring and informing her most recent series of work. She is represented by Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

About Morton Fine Art Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can be cultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellar roster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus on artwork of the African Diaspora. Morton Fine Art 52 O St NW #302 Washington, DC 20001 Wed – Sat 12pm-5pm and Sun-Tues by appointment

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY and “In Print” in Daily Press

Entertainment Galleries and Museums

New prints reinvent old medium on giant scale in Portsmouth

Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center stages rare exhibit of contemporary prints that reinvent the ancient medium on a giant scale. — Mark St. John Erickson

Mark St. John Erickson

Contact Reporter At a Glance

If rare is the word when it comes to noteworthy exhibits of period prints, scarcer still are shows of contemporary printmaking.

Nearly two decades have passed since the last substantial example unfolded anywhere close to Hampton Roads — and for that you had to drive to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

But in a year made remarkable by not just one, but two impressive displays of 17th-century prints at the Peninsula Fine Art Center in Newport News — including three dozen etchings by Rembrandt — fans of this seldom-seen medium are getting a great bonus.

Curated by Gayle Paul of the Portsmouth Art and Cultural Center, “In Print” features scores of works you may not associate with the mostly small, deliberately intimate prints of the past — and that’s because the regional and nationally known artists who made them used new tools and hugely expanded scale to reinvent them.

“My Grandmother’s Camoisole,” by Domenica Webb of Chesapeake, is one of about 60 works by 10 artists on view at the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center through May 28 in “In Print.” (Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center / HANDOUT)

“This exhibit is about artists who create the image as an original print, then see it through the entire printmaking process,” Paul said.

“And they’re using advanced and improved printmaking technology to create works you couldn’t make just a few years ago.”

A year in the making, “In Print” explores works by numerous Hampton Roads and Virginia artists, as well as talents from Ohio, Tennessee and the West Coast.

Unexpected scale is a defining characteristic of the collection here, where your eyes may pop and your breath be taken away by the sheer size and ambition of such pieces as a 14-foot-tall installation by Washington artist Nicole Pietrantoni.

Cascading down from the wall just a foot shy of the gallery’s high ceilings, five hand-bound accordion-style books unfurl into the air and fall to the floor, their synchronized pages forming a huge vertical view of ocean swells rumbling in from a distant horizon toward the viewer.

Dark clouds trace ominous patterns in the sky overhead, while barely submerged rocks lurk just below the frothy surface.

Passages of words pour down the pages in fragments, riding the currents with the menacing conclusions of a climate change and water report.

“The scale is just spectacular,” Paul says, describing a work so large it nudges you back on you heels if you get too close.

“And it creates this giant image that’s not just seen but felt.”

That impact is made all the more striking by the much smaller, even intimate scale of “Precipitous” before it was unpacked.

Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center stages rare exhibit of contemporary prints that reinvent the ancient medium on a giant scale. — Mark St. John Erickson

“It arrived in an Office Depot box maybe 16-by-20-by-16 inches in size,” Paul said, “yet it expanded into this huge piece measuring 6 feet wide and 14 feet high.”

Even bigger and more muscular is “Black Ice,” a 20-foot-wide Arctic landscape engraved, painted and assembled by Alexandria artist Rosemary Feit Covey.

Though her “Gingko” and “Fish” images are substantially smaller, the same curious combination of elvish craftsmanship and robust size makes you stop to look — and if you do it closely you will find hundreds if not thousands of small wood engravings that have been pulled through a press, cut out and then collaged into complex and arresting images.

“Wood engraving is a very old process,” Paul said, “but this is an entirely new way to do it.”

Old Dominion University artist Domenica Webb takes a similar tack with her oversize cyanotype prints, using an early photographic medium and direct printing to make otherworldly images of veils, dresses and blouses once worn by Webb or various family members.

Burned into the blue paper with sunlight, some images are then embellished with pins, stitching and buttons, too, adding the presence of the artist’s hand to these ethereal surrogates of her childhood and family.

“They’re beautiful,” Paul says, “and very personal.”

“In Print”

Where: Portsmouth Art and Cultural Center, 1846 Courthouse, 400 High St., Portsmouth.

When: Through May 28.

Cost: $3 adults, $2 children ages 2-17.

Info: 757-393-8543 or portsmouthartcenter.com.

Click here to view these featured and available pieces by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY. Please contact Morton Fine Art for pricing and details. 

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY exhibits “In Print” at Portsmouth Art & Culture Center

Rosemary Feit Covey, Fish, 2017, 72″x60″, mixed media on canvas

 

 

Location:

Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center

400 High Street

Portsmouth, VA 23704-3622

 

www.portsmouthartcenter.com

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Hours:

Wednesday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Sunday, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

 

PORTSMOUTH, VA – The Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center, located in historic Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia kicks off their exhibition season offering two new exhibits during an opening reception on Friday, March 2 from 5:00-8:00 p.m.  Portsmouth Here & Now II celebrates the creativity of those who work or live in the Portsmouth community.  In Print pulls artists from across the United States to present an exhibition that explores the innovative ways that contemporary artists have expanded upon printmaking techniques to create original fine art prints and mixed media works for the display.   The First Friday music series features Matt Thomas on acoustic & harp guitar.

In Print offers some of the longstanding and popular printmaking techniques; lithography, intaglio or etching, drypoint, woodcut or wood engraving, aquatint and soft-ground etching.  Over the last century, newer techniques such as serigraphy or screen-printing, collograph, mono-printing and photo-etching along with combinations of all of the above have enriched the printing techniques that artists use today.  New surfaces have also expanded how artists print and present their work.  Featured are many examples of these processes presented by prominent artists and printmakers Charles Beneke, Rosemary Feit Covey, Staci Katsias, Clay McGlamory, Althea Murphy-Price, Amanda Outcalt-Hoyt, Nicole Pietrantoni, Jenny Robinson, Tanja Softić, and Dominica Webb.  In Print continues through May 28, 2018.

 

Please click HERE to view available artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY.

Contact Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009 for acquisition.

(202) 628-2787

mortonfineart@gmail.com

http://www.mortonfineart.com

ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY reviewed in the Washington Post

In the galleries: Digital and traditional media join forces

By Mark Jenkins

Museums

Review

June 30, 2017

 

 

Rosemary Feit Covey’s “Gingko,” mixed media on canvas, on view at Morton Fine Art. (Rosemary Feit Covey/Morton Fine Art)

Rosemary Feit Covey

Nature teems in Rosemary Feit Covey’s large mixed-media paintings. Hundreds of pink and red fish school in spirals, and uncountable yellow ginkgo leaves cover most of a deep blue background. Yet the Washington artist has doubts about the fecundity she depicts. Her Morton Fine Art show is titled “The Planet Is a Delicate Thing.”

Covey’s skills include woodblock printing, whose carving technique she incorporates into low-relief pictures that are partly engraved and partly painted. This array’s epic, “Black Ice,” is an immersive eight-panel tableaux; it fills the gallery’s longest wall with blue-and-white ice floes on a darker-than-wine sea. The dramatic Arctic oceanscape, like the polar bear on the adjacent wall, was inspired by a trip to northern Norway.

The artist doesn’t directly portray ecological disasters, although this show includes one of the bone-pile pictures she has exhibited at Morton before. But global warming menaces the polar scenes, and those fish are fleeing the oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout. Covey’s responses to such disasters are both expansive and exquisitely detailed.

Rosemary Feit Covey: The Planet Is a Delicate Thing On view through July 9 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Please click HERE to view available artwork by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY.