ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Years in art education and arts management have afforded me wonderful opportunities to explore many artistic mediums. I am especially grateful for my tenure as Assistant Director at Westchester Art Workshop and the opportunity to teach as an Adjunct Professor through the State University of New York. Over the course of time, my work has been diverse in subject matter and materials; but there are certain things I always return to as an artist.
Photography has been my passion for decades. Portraits have always appealed to me. Not just portraits of people...portraits of animals, flowers, structures. Studies of all things in Nature appeal to me the most. Creating portraits takes time. Taking time forces you to slow down and delve deeply into the very essence of your subject. Once you start doing that seriously, you'll never see things the same way again.
Nature has been my most enduring Muse. Returning time and again to Nature through the medium of photography has always taken me on the most personally rewarding creative journeys. Nature is my deepest connection to the spiritual, the universal, the Divine. To me, the most productive art studio is in everything that encompasses the wide open spaces to the small delicate places in Nature... even some of the man-made "natural" spaces. My other studios are in my dreams and meditations... the places where I'm able to completely envision subjects in other-worldly dimensions. Einstein said that everything in life is vibration. Everything is made up of atoms. These atoms are in a constant state of motion. Depending upon the speed of the atoms, things may appear as solid... but, they're really not. This is a theory I endeavor to explore via the way I handle photographs. I love to deconstruct a subject into something vibrating in an other-worldly pattern that celebrates and elevates its essence and beauty.
It's my hope that people viewing my work will respond to the aura, the movement, the atmosphere evoked in the emotional and dreamlike qualities of the subjects. Perhaps it will even jog their memory back to times when they've experienced seeing things in a similar way in their own meditations or dreams. Possibly some have experienced seeing the dreamlike essence of something when they've taken off their glasses... much like Monsieur Claude Monet may have done as he viewed his home and gardens.
I'd love for viewers to delight in the dances of light, plays of shadow and bursts of color that come to the fore in what I've explored photographically. It's my hope viewers will connect to the ways the subject matter was taken many steps beyond how we normally see it... bringing it closer to it's core being... deconstructing it right down to the very essence of its soul and spirit. May this inspire the artist and dreamer that's in your soul.
Thank you for taking the time to view my work.
~ Rose
“Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better."
~Albert Einstein
"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."
~Khalil Gibran
"Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her."
~William Wordsworth
“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.”
~ Claude Monet
"The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it."
~Gustave Courbet
Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.
~Edvard Munch
Years in art education and arts management have afforded me wonderful opportunities to explore many artistic mediums. I am especially grateful for my tenure as Assistant Director at Westchester Art Workshop and the opportunity to teach as an Adjunct Professor through the State University of New York. Over the course of time, my work has been diverse in subject matter and materials; but there are certain things I always return to as an artist.
Photography has been my passion for decades. Portraits have always appealed to me. Not just portraits of people...portraits of animals, flowers, structures. Studies of all things in Nature appeal to me the most. Creating portraits takes time. Taking time forces you to slow down and delve deeply into the very essence of your subject. Once you start doing that seriously, you'll never see things the same way again.
Nature has been my most enduring Muse. Returning time and again to Nature through the medium of photography has always taken me on the most personally rewarding creative journeys. Nature is my deepest connection to the spiritual, the universal, the Divine. To me, the most productive art studio is in everything that encompasses the wide open spaces to the small delicate places in Nature... even some of the man-made "natural" spaces. My other studios are in my dreams and meditations... the places where I'm able to completely envision subjects in other-worldly dimensions. Einstein said that everything in life is vibration. Everything is made up of atoms. These atoms are in a constant state of motion. Depending upon the speed of the atoms, things may appear as solid... but, they're really not. This is a theory I endeavor to explore via the way I handle photographs. I love to deconstruct a subject into something vibrating in an other-worldly pattern that celebrates and elevates its essence and beauty.
It's my hope that people viewing my work will respond to the aura, the movement, the atmosphere evoked in the emotional and dreamlike qualities of the subjects. Perhaps it will even jog their memory back to times when they've experienced seeing things in a similar way in their own meditations or dreams. Possibly some have experienced seeing the dreamlike essence of something when they've taken off their glasses... much like Monsieur Claude Monet may have done as he viewed his home and gardens.
I'd love for viewers to delight in the dances of light, plays of shadow and bursts of color that come to the fore in what I've explored photographically. It's my hope viewers will connect to the ways the subject matter was taken many steps beyond how we normally see it... bringing it closer to it's core being... deconstructing it right down to the very essence of its soul and spirit. May this inspire the artist and dreamer that's in your soul.
Thank you for taking the time to view my work.
~ Rose
“Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better."
~Albert Einstein
"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."
~Khalil Gibran
"Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her."
~William Wordsworth
“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.”
~ Claude Monet
"The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it."
~Gustave Courbet
Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.
~Edvard Munch
SELECTED INDIVIDUAL & GROUP SHOWS
Hammond Museum - North Salem, NY
Mamaroneck Artist’s Guild - Mamaroneck, NY
Westchester Art Workshop Faculty Show - White Plains, NY
Westchester Gallery - White Plains, NY
Fine Arts Gallery at Westchester Community College - Valhalla, NY
Wainwright House - Rye, NY
Jay Heritage Center - Rye, NY
Oeuvre the Rainbow Gallery - Bedford Village, NY
John Jay Homestead - Katonah, NY
Ward Pound Ridge Reservation - Cross River, NY
Greenburgh Nature Center - Scarsdale, NY
Bridge Gallery - White Plains, NY
Hudson River Museum - Yonkers, NY
Chappaqua Library - Chappaqua, NY
White Plains Library - White Plains. NY
Mount Kisco Library - Mount Kisco, NY
Philipsburg Manor - Sleepy Hollow, NY
Scarsdale Library - Scarsdale, NY
Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site - Yonkers, NY
Untermeyer Park and Gardens - Yonkers, NY
Lenoir Preserve - Yonkers, NY
Yonkers Department of Parks, Recreation & Conservation
EDUCATION
Pratt Institute - School of Art & Design: Communication Arts Major
School of Visual Arts - Graphic Design, Photography
Parsons School of Design - Costume Design
FIT - Draping
Art Students League - Painting, Drawing, Intaglio
SUNY Westchester Art Workshop - Photography, Painting, Watercolor, Drawing, Life Drawing, Jewelry, Pottery, Weaving, Stained Glass, Calligraphy
CONTACT
[email protected]
Copyright © 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2004, 2003 Rose Rita Petersons - All Rights Reserved - Exclusive Creative Property of the Artist (Except Quotations of Rumi, Longfellow, Einstein, Wordsworth, Gilbran, Monet, Courbet and Munch).
Photographs and all Content owned by the Artist may not be downloaded, printed, copied, or forwarded by electronic media from this website or otherwise used without the express permission of the Artist.