Let Me Count The Ways I Love You

Rainbows over fields of grass, floating hearts, naked dolls, beaded butterflies: Lily Rosen’s work offers a tender, dreamy landscape for the viewer to explore. This process of whimsical discovery stems from a meditative, repetitive effort by the artist, who has chosen (among other media), the labor-intensive yet highly sensual art of embroidery.

Let Me Count The Ways I Love You includes fabric and clothes embroidered with outdoor scenery and people, often depicted in extensive detail and highlighted by careful bead work. Other exhibited works include a large, colorful hanging carpet of a painting by the artist, and mischievous drawings on paper.

The nude human form is featured at the forefront of Lily Rosen’s most recent body of work, and its representation is on par with the other elements outlined in the textile pieces: joyful, sometimes naive, sometimes cheeky like in the night slips embroidered with beaded male and female attributes. This earthly garden of Eden is full of humor, as the artist manages to show nude bodies with the same delicate casualness as any other living being or object depicted in the work, staying away from exploitation or shame. On the contrary, the playful scenes invite the viewer to enjoy one’s body in its natural, naked beauty, and to nurture one’s interior world.