Patrons walk down the stairs past the "Landscape Series" by Frances de La Rosa at the Georgia Museum of Art on Sept. 1.

Color, texture combine in series

By: DENECHIA POWELL

Posted: 9/17/07

Landscapes and childhood memories served as the inspiration for Frances de La Rosa's new series of paintings at the Georgia Museum of Art.

The museum is showing de La Rosa's "Landscape Series," a group of 12 paintings located on the wall above the building's staircase.

De La Rosa, who is a professor of painting at Wesleyan College in Macon, said she was excited to create art specifically for the space and wanted to take full advantage of the challenge.

"I decided that I wanted it to be a reaction to the space," de La Rosa said. "It's an interesting challenge and you do not get the opportunity very often as an artist."

Dennis Harper, the curator of exhibitions at the museum, said he and the museum's curator of American art, Paul Manoguerra, developed the idea of showing de La Rosa's paintings in the museum after visiting her studio in Macon.

"That's when the idea arose to combine a number of smaller canvases in a grid to create a mural-sized composition," Harper said.

De La Rosa said she liked the play on discord that was created by putting the individual paintings together as if they were pieces of a quilt.

The artist has been working with landscapes for many years.

She said she drew on memories of the landscapes that dominated her childhood to create "Landscape Series."

"I grew up in a rural and agricultural environment in Alabama," de La Rosa said. "That's where I spent most of my time, roaming the fields, so it's intrinsic."

She said her goal was to capture the essence of landscapes, colors and textures of her childhood surroundings and relate it to the architecture of the space.

She also said she hoped the paintings would seem integrated into the architectural experience.

Stacking landscapes are central to de La Rosa's paintings. She said each row of the landscapes represents an element of nature.

"The landscapes are loosely conceived by considering how you have the squares at the top that are a reference to the sky, the middle row are a reference to the foliage and the lower squares convey the earth or water," de La Rosa said.

Harper said the work is impressive because of the attention paid to the paintings' surface, with layers and textures that enhance their impression of nature.

"Visitors seem to respond favorably to the work itself and to the idea of spotlighting contemporary Georgians," Harper said.

Artists who have influenced de La Rosa include Rufino Tamayo, a Mexican painter, and Georgia O' Keeffe, an American painter.

She and her photographer husband, Fernando de La Rosa, will be holding a show next April at Sander Hudson Gallery in Atlanta.