Laura Von Rosk

Fence Paintings 2024

The “Fence” series was inspired by a month-long residency in Wyoming, where I was immersed in the sparsely populated, striking landscape of endless hills and fences. The tonal range of light, and the lines created by the fences, allow me to direct the space in the painting. A fence can contain numerous meanings.  As it meanders through the land, it can guide you, keep you out, or hold you in. It can welcome or limit you, suggest safety, or restraint. Its shape, placement and direction can add a sense of character to itself, and also to the landscape. 

The recent “Sea Breeze Patio” series is based on the backyard of my childhood home, where we had a small patio lined with arborvitae bushes. I began the series in the fall of 2023, soon after my father passed, as an homage to my parents.  Although the images stem from a particular place I know well, they are transformed either through the filter of memory, or my desire to reinvent and cast a new light on this place. The familiar arborvitae bushes and slate ground serve as a template, or scaffolding to build a painting.

In these two recent series of works (2023-2024), human made environments or objects (slate patio or fences) become the main elements driving an ambiguous narrative. Color and light can create an atmospheric surreal space, where the landscape holds traces from invisible people, suggesting both their presence and absence simultaneously.

Sea Breeze Patio Paintings 2023-2024