Biography
Dawn Marie Rozzo has lived in Raleigh, NC for the past 20 years and has been a working artist and art educator for over 30 years. She grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, where she spent much of her childhood exploring the hills, creeks, and farmland surrounding her home. This landscape, the North Carolina seacoast, and her garden inform her art-making. When she is not working in her home studio, she is outside in the garden, or taking a walk in fields near her home. She lives with her husband and two nosey cats.
"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere." Vincent Van Gogh
Artist Statement
I work with traditional paint materials: watercolor, oil, acrylic, and encaustic. I refer to traditional imagery from the garden and landscape, but I use ephemeral materials as supports. I adhere upscaled papers found in books or bins to masonite board (a recycled composite) or wood.
My work sits in a contemporary module full of dichotomy. I begin with a fleeting observation that requires spontaneous and gestural documentation but is finalized through step-by-step processes. I employ traditional methods and create recognizable imagery interrupted by arbitrary or random visuals. I want the work to be highly accessible to the viewer and provoke questions about consumable materials discarded.
It has been more than a decade since I started working this way. I have come to realize that I have much to say about permanence versus transitory approaches to art-making.
I like using materials that have been discarded, intended for the landfill. I like that the printed and altered page hints at another narrative than the one drawn over. I like that on some small level, I have reduced my artmaking footprint. Still, I also want the work to endure. I go to great lengths to properly adhere, fortify, and varnish work so that the patron can be certain that the work is archival. The work will last for many generations if desired.
I invite my viewers to further imagine and articulate their experience with the natural world.
Dawn in her Red Door Studio.
