Last updated: April 1, 2023
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Laura Von Rosk
These small-scale paintings (12” average) depict experiences of specific places, as well as responses to other artworks, which could include contemporary artists, early 20thCentury American painters, Italian and Northern Renaissance works, or Persian and Indian manuscript paintings. They come from my love of miniaturization, intricacy, the plasticity of paint, and the illusion of space. Images are constructed by mixing elements of landscape and natural forms with memory and imagination. Forms are repeated, emphasized, and manipulated to create tension between the “imagined” and the real world. The forms (lakes, ditches, fields, etc.) come from not just what I see, but what I know about constructing paintings and some deep memory system. When I see certain places - a sand ditch along the highway, a gravel pit, a cultivated field, or just a peculiar bend in the road - I’m attracted to it, and I make a mental note. It seems I look for the places that are already in my head. If I can’t find it out there, I’ll attempt to create it. There may be a story hidden the painting, which I myself am still only vaguely aware of.
-Laura Von Rosk
Laura Von Rosk earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY at Purchase. Her paintings have been exhibited nationally in both solo and group shows. Her awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowship; an Individual Artist Support Grant from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation; an artist Fellowship Grant from the Bernheim Foundation in Clermont, KY; and residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VA; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; Centrum, WA; Dorland Arts Colony, CA; NY Mills Cultural Center, MN; Acadia National Park, ME; and in New York: Yaddo; Blue Mountain Center; and the Millay Colony.