Public Notice and Arcane Space are pleased to present NICK ROSE- Boy With Thorn, mixed media works.

Boy With Thorn is the inspection of a nagging pain, the moment of pause in search of relief.

Having dealt with chronic pain for years, Rose knows what it means to have a thorn in the heel, to inspect the wound, and to carefully tend to it.

Rose’s large scale canvases hint at a narrative of discomfort and fleeting moments of relief. Grey scale photographs of intertwining brambles, legs mid-stride, and good luck clovers are transferred in large scale to the canvas. The images then treated with various layers of paint and pencil, at some points accentuating the applied imagery and at others completely obfuscating it. This meditative process of Rose returning again and again to the canvas is not dissimilar to the process of physical care.

Three punctured tires, a modern day take on the plight of Spinario, sit at the center of the gallery. One tire is afflicted with a myriad of sharp objects, while twin arrows penetrate through another. A spear impales straight through the third tire, completely disabling its function. In Los Angeles, where the tire is just as, if not more, important to mobility than the foot, these sculptures reinforce the constant reminder of vulnerability.

 In Boy With Thorn, Rose connects personal and historical references to introspective questions. The paintings and sculptures bear witness to a problem and a solution, the ever-present possibility of suffering and the process of mending. The work’s symbolic imagery call to mind questions of the existential: How do we interact with the inevitable? How do others relate to our suffering? What does it take to study pain and heal oneself of it, alone or as a collective?