Rosson Crow Exhibit Explores JFK Assassination Through Fictional Showgirl

Los Angeles-based painter Rosson Crow’s third exhibition with the Honor Fraser Gallery is opening this month and it’s sure to intrigue art and history fans alike. “Madame Psychosis Holds a Séance” explores the fictional world of an aging showgirl obsessed with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The name “Madame Psychosis” comes from the novel “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace and is a play on the term ”metempsychosis,” another word for reincarnation. Crow’s latest project, which consists of a short film and a series of paintings, tells the story of a woman whose life revolves around the events and conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s assassination in 1963, an event that still fascinates the public over 50 years later.

“In this exhibition, Crow employs this charged event as a narrative device to engage questions of individual identity, the power of emotion to confuse our sense of reality, and the human desire to connect to shared pasts while establishing relevance in the present,” explains the Honor Fraser.

The exhibit features Crow’s first film, which she wrote. Starring Kelly Lynch as Madame Psychosis, the film features Crow’s paintings as backdrops, as well as inspiration for sets that she designed and created.

Rosson Crow was born in 1982 in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from the School of the Visual Arts in New York with a BFA in 2004, she went on to earn an MFA from Yale.  While there, her work caught the eye of French art dealer Nathalie Obadia, who put on her first exhibition in France.  In 2006, the Wall Street Journal recognized her in a top ten list of emerging U.S. artists.

Other works of Crow’s inspired by history include the painting Night at the Palomino,” (2007), which depicts a scene at a legendary Hollywood nightclub.

Rosson Crow’s Madame Psychosis Holds a Séance” will be at the Honor Fraser Gallery Nov. 7 – Dec. 19.