Josh Rosenthal
Encyclopedia
Early life
Josh Rosenthal was born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Rosenthal's early years were surrounded by his parents' significant Australian art collection which included such artists as John Perceval
John Perceval
John de Burgh Perceval AO was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s...
, Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman is one of the best known Australian artists still living today, especially for the famous Schoolgirl and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s...
, Fred Williams
Fred Williams
Frederick Ronald Williams OBE was an Australian painter and printmaker. He was one of Australia’s most important artists, and one of the twentieth century’s major painters of the landscape...
, Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley
Brett Whiteley, AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize...
, Norman Lindsay
Norman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
, and Roy DeMaistre, all of whom left an impression on him. Thanks to the deep passion and enthusiasm that his parents had for art, and their direct social connection to the world of art, Rosenthal was exposed first hand to the works of many artists from around the world, both historical and contemporary.
Rosenthal took up painting at age 13 against the backdrop of an increasingly fragmented and dysfunctional home. The sense of deep isolation he felt from this became his focus and oil and canvas became his most powerful means of expression which is still evident in his thematic work today.
Rosenthal began his art education at Wesley College
Wesley College, Melbourne
Wesley College, Melbourne is an independent, co-educational, Christian day school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1866, the college is a school of the Uniting Church in Australia. Wesley is the largest school in Australia by enrolment, with 3,511 students and 564 full-time staff...
in Melbourne, where he was distinguished with the Art Award for Excellence and graduated with the highest mark in the state in Fine Arts. As a consequence he was invited to exhibit in Australia's national public galleries as part of a touring show. He went on to a degree at the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art
National Institute of Dramatic Art
The National Institute of Dramatic Art is an Australian national training institute for students of theatre, film, and television, based in the Sydney suburb of Kensington. It is supported by the federal Office for the Arts, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. NIDA is located adjacent...
(NIDA) in Sydney.
Actor
On graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic ArtNational Institute of Dramatic Art
The National Institute of Dramatic Art is an Australian national training institute for students of theatre, film, and television, based in the Sydney suburb of Kensington. It is supported by the federal Office for the Arts, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. NIDA is located adjacent...
(NIDA) Rosenthal appeared in several Australian TV shows, including the highly rated Police Rescue
Police Rescue
Police Rescue was an Australian television series which originally aired on ABC TV between 1989 and 1996. It was produced by ABC and Southern Star Xanadu in association with the BBC....
, Water Rats
Water Rats (TV series)
Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney...
, the soap opera Home and Away
Home and Away
Home and Away is an Australian soap opera that has been produced in Sydney since July 1987 and is airing on the Seven Network since 17 January 1988. It is the second-longest-running drama and most popular soap opera on Australian television...
, and Heartlands, Murder Call and the film The Bet
The Bet (2005 film)
The Bet is a 2005 film directed by Mark Lee, set in Sydney, Australia.The case includes Matthew Newton, Aden Young and Sybilla Budd. Budd was nominated best supporting actress for the 2007 AFI awards....
. Rosenthal has recently finished filming The Last Godfather with Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, Jason Mewes
Jason Mewes
Jason Edward Mewes is an American television, film actor, and internet radio show host best known for playing Jay, the vocal half of the duo Jay and Silent Bob, in longtime friend Kevin Smith's films.-Early life:...
and Michael Rispoli
Michael Rispoli
Michael Rispoli is an American character actor. He was formerly part of the HBO television series The Sopranos as Jackie Aprile, Sr...
.
Rosenthal's most noticeable stage performances were in the world premiere of Louis Nowra
Louis Nowra
Louis Nowra is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist.He is best known as one of Australia's leading playwrights...
's 1998 production of The Jungle, where his character of the Romanian opportunist was said to be 'Streep-like'. The Jungle chronicled the back room dealings of many of Sydney Australia's socialites and notorious underworld dealings and figures from the mid to late 1980s. His other noted performance was as the angry Scotsman 'Brodie' in the 2003 production of Sir Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
's The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
, where he played opposite Hugo Weaving
Hugo Weaving
Hugo Wallace Weaving is a Nigerian born, English-Australian film actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "V" in V for Vendetta, and performances in numerous Australian character dramas.-Early...
at the Sydney Theatre Company
Sydney Theatre Company
The Sydney Theatre Company is one of Australia's best-known theatre companies operating from The Wharf Theatre near The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Sydney Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre....
.
The art of Josh Rosenthal
Rosenthal's early theatrical career provided a strong base for his painting's subject matter developing his very narrative-driven style.Josh Rosenthal's work is an exploration of the individual and often unconscious segments that make up our character along with the distant emotions that form our psyche.His earlier work included a range of voyeur-like characters, innocents and the more seedy elements of society, placed inside isolated scenes and backdrops are an extraction of common elements within us all.
The viewer forms a relationship with the characters, both human and animal, in Rosenthal's works. The irony being that at first look the figures seem isolated and lonely but inherently have a depth that draws the viewer into the soul. There is a very strong connection that ties the viewer to the emotional world of Rosenthal's figures as his work often searches for ways to 'touch' the viewer.
The shadows, the blur of a moving body part, the smudge of a lip or the additional body outline are symbols that he often uses throughout his works help the viewer to access and discover what lies below our human façades, our deep, dark inner workings.
His work is often described as being full of colors that are vibrant and alive and totally devoid of muddiness. His startling and curious subject matter resonates with a certainty that indicates that he is fully in control of his artistic prowess.
He is also exploring and often questioning what is the true self and what are our true desires as well as attempting to bring an overall ambiguity to the work.
Filmography
- The Last Godfather(2011 film) (2011)
- The BetThe Bet (2005 film)The Bet is a 2005 film directed by Mark Lee, set in Sydney, Australia.The case includes Matthew Newton, Aden Young and Sybilla Budd. Budd was nominated best supporting actress for the 2007 AFI awards....
(2006) - Go Big (2004)
- Home and AwayHome and AwayHome and Away is an Australian soap opera that has been produced in Sydney since July 1987 and is airing on the Seven Network since 17 January 1988. It is the second-longest-running drama and most popular soap opera on Australian television...
(1997–2003) - Murder CallMurder CallMurder Call was an Australian television series, created by Hal McElroy for the Southern Star Entertainment and seen on the Nine Network between 1997 and 2000. The idea to the series was born by the books of Tessa Vance by Jennifer Rowe: Suspect/Deadline and Something Wicked...
(1998) - Water RatsWater Rats (TV series)Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney...
(1996) - BordertownBordertown (TV miniseries)Bordertown is a 1995 Australian TV miniseries. It takes place in a post World War II refugee camp in Australia.-Cast:*Cate Blanchett as Bianca*Mitchell Butel as Nino Della Vergine*Linda Cropper as Bev Stafford*Petru Gheorghiu as Dante...
(1995) - Police RescuePolice RescuePolice Rescue was an Australian television series which originally aired on ABC TV between 1989 and 1996. It was produced by ABC and Southern Star Xanadu in association with the BBC....
(1995)
Selected group exhibitions - USA
- "G'Day Australia" Hamilton Galleries, Santa Monica California 2009
- "Almost Famous" Venice Arts Council, Venice California 2007
- "Art Registry", Chase Contemporary Arts & Sotheby'sSotheby'sSotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
International Washington DC 2007 - "Venice Art Walk", Venice California, 2006
- "Almost Famous" Venice Arts Council, Venice California 2006
- "Art Express", National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Australia, 1989
External links
- http://www.examiner.com/x-915-Los-Angeles-Art-Scene-Examiner~y2008m11d21-Your-Weekend-Art-Guide
- http://ijulian.blogspot.com/2008/11/josh-rosenthalpassionate-painterly.html
- http://www.chasecontemporaryart.com/artists/Rosenthal/rosenthal.html
- http://wordpress.com/tag/josh-rosenthal/
- http://www.tv.com/josh-rosenthal/person/290835/appearances.html
- http://www.zimbio.com/The+New+York+Times/articles/1196/Josh+Rosenthal+passionate+painterly+style