Capitol Hill Art League Mind of the Artist: Rosa Inés Vera

on June 1, 2021

This month we’re featuring Rosa Inés Vera for the Capitol Hill Art League’s Mind of the Artist feature. Read her story and check out her beautiful artwork below.

After spending my working life in economics and international finance, I have been fortunate to find my passion in art. I grew up in Washington, D.C. and in Latin America. For me art is an expression of that past: of being taken from country to country as a child, being bicultural and bilingual, and adjusting to different environments. But it is also an expression of the present as I now live between Peru and the States, two different cultures. I convey this experience through paintings, installation boxes and assemblages. Although the message is often serious, I want the work to be playful.

My painting style is expressive; my subjects are figures and landscapes. My figure work explores our relationships as friends, as humans, or self-reflection. In these paintings there are often travelers moving through space or a contemplative individual. The figures represent myself, my life experiences and sometimes world events. These works are in acrylic paint or collage and acrylic combined on different surfaces. Color harmony is an important element, as is composition.

A piece often starts with a small sketch and goes through many reiterations and changes of color. I use many layers of paint, one atop another, to create a “history” that can be shown or partially hidden. I think this adds to the texture and quality of the paint surface.

I am interested in the relationship between humans and nature. Recent landscape paintings of marshlands reflect the delicate balance to sustain these lands and the effects of human interference in climate change.

My work is strongly influenced by literature, newspapers, poetry and the art of others. I have been inspired by the Bay Area Figurative Painters, such as Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, and Manuel Neri. Their simplification and abstraction of the human figure encourages me to practice this on mine.

So many of today’s issues, immigration and the role of women in both societies among them, are also strong influences on many of my pieces.