Showing at the Firehouse exhibit hall in Newburyport, now through July 15, the “My Dune Road” series by Rose Kimbell.
Kimbell graduated with her B.F.A. from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA in 2012. Having focused on oil painting during her time at the School Museum of Fine Arts, Rose has been consistently curating evocative brush strokes.
Her inspiration draws from the beauty of nature, capturing scenes both ethereal and grounded.
Rose’s stylistic growth continues to evolve: she began in bold, acrylic layers, graduating to grand oil cavasses, and now settling into subdued gouache serenity. (Gouache is a medium resembling a thick watercolor, with vivid color and chalky texture.)
Artist Statement:
“My paintings are expressions of the landscape along the ocean of Long Island, New York. Having spent a lot of time over the past 6 years in East Quogue and surrounding areas of Long Island, I have taken many photographs, using all of my own images as references to paint from.
I strive to express the constant change amongst the landscape, the flow of wind as it moves across the grass. It is important to me in this body of work to show the continual motion of the elements, and to evoke an emotion of intimacy with nature. The viewer is invited into these scenes of the shifting landscape, possibly imagining what it may feel like to be standing in there, feeling the wind rush over the body, and roll across the dunes as far as the eye can see.
The constant change of our physical world surrounds us in every moment. We may not see it closely in our everyday lives, but what we see surrounding us will continually be reshaped. I look to capture the beauty of the natural world, the stillness in that sliver in time while representing the continual movement and change encompassing us. I look to express what it would feel like if you could slow time in a chaotic filled moment, wind blowing so harshly your thoughts slow, and you feel the infinite surroundings and sense you are one with the elements, as if you could be swept up into the landscape.
I use a constant shade of cobalt in this series, a deep, endless azure representing the immeasurable sea that surrounds us. The sky I have left untouched on purpose, utilizing the background of my paper or wooden panel. It is with a muted overcast sky that the colors of the vegetation and surroundings emerge the brightest. The blank yet bright background as the sky symbolizes an infinite atmosphere, an immeasurable space. Painting on paper as well as wooden panels, I use both mediums as the sky for the integration of a natural material, originating from trees and grown from the earth, as is the beauty of the landscapes.” (Rose Kimbell)