Passing Through

Frosch & Co is pleased to present Passing Through, a duo exhibition by New York based artists Emily Berger and Marcy Rosenblat. Bringing together recent paintings by both artists, the exhibition explores abstraction through layering and depth, emphasizing the experience of close and slow viewing. While distinct in their formal approach, Berger and Rosenblat engage in an interplay of chance and control, allowing accidents to become part of the composition. Both artists intimate depth in their work, constructing space through accumulation from the ground up–dense or open, veiled or exposed, shallow or deep, shifting or still–while maintaining a sense of dynamic, contained energy. Color functions both as a structural and sensuous element in these paintings. In Berger’s work, rhythm, repetition, and mark build form, while for Rosenblat, pattern acts as a curtain, tempering and filtering the bold presence of underlying shapes. Painting rows of marks in a mostly horizontal motion across vertical wood panels, Berger approaches her paintings like music or writing, with shifts in rhythm and moments of rest along the way. She covers and uncovers previous layers of paint and the wood beneath in contrasting or close-valued color, revealing a dialogue between surface and depth. In her current work, Berger paints with a squeegee, incorporating accident and chance into her mark-making. Marcy Rosenblat’s paintings similarly evolve through layering and chance. In her new body of work, she continues to create the illusion of patterned fabric covering the surface, while the shapes beneath have grown more monumental and bold. Painting through lace, she layers pattern over form, allowing the underlying structure to remain partially hidden. The interaction between the forms and the surface pattern complicates the space, as the scrim-like coat appears to change the colors beneath; spraying through lace is a gamble that introduces the unexpected. The paintings in Passing Through enter into a quiet dialogue, where Berger’s grid of vertical bands and Rosenblat’s organic veiled forms establish a dynamic tension between order and fluidity, clarity and obstruction. Built from repeated passes, the surfaces accumulate layers that assert themselves but remain permeable. Both bodies of work reward slow looking, offering surfaces you look at and look through.

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