Rosalind Brenner

Artist Statement

My work moves between abstraction and the figure, between what is immediately visible and what gradually reveals itself.

I begin with color, gesture, words, line, forms, the physical act of painting itself. Except for commissions, I rarely plan exactly where a work is going when I start. As the surface develops, uplifting color, figures, birds, faces, fragments of landscape, and other imagined shapes often begin to emerge. I follow them, sometimes strengthening what I see and sometimes allowing them to remain partly hidden. My imagination pairs me with my muse. I love birds and my environment on the east end. I want to bring that appreciation of natural beauty into my work.

I love commissioned glass and paintings. These paintings and stained glass commissions are very much planned to meet my clients’ needs.

Light has become increasingly important in my work—not simply as illumination, but as energy, movement, and a way of transforming color.

I am interested in the moment when something recognizable appears within abstraction and then seems to dissolve again. I like to say my viewer completes the process, either seeing what I see or bringing their own emotional reactions and experiences to their observation.

My years working in stained glass continue to influence the paintings. Glass taught me to think about light passing through color, about line and strong or blended divisions of shape, and about the emotional power of luminous color.

Whether I am working in paint, glass, or words, I am drawn to discovery. I want the work to retain some mystery—to offer an initial experience and then provide the reward in another look.

Biography

Rosalind Brenner is a painter, glass artist, and poet based in East Hampton, New York. Her work moves fluidly between abstraction and the figure, often allowing human forms, birds, landscape, and unexpected imagery to emerge from layered fields of color and gesture.

Her long practice in architectural stained glass has deeply influenced her approach to painting, particularly her fascination with luminous color, space, and the transforming qualities of light.

She is a Master Craftswoman and expert restorer of stained glass as well.

Rosalind spent years teaching stained glass in the NYC adult education program in Queens and at The D’Amico Art Barge in Napeague, NY.

Ms. Brenner has exhibited her work on Long Island, NY and New Jersey, including frequent participation in the Springs Invitational as well as a one woman show in the Geri Bauer Gallery in Bridgehampton, NY, one in Quogue Library Gallery and one at Sarah Lawrence College where she received her MFA, as well as many group art shows.

Rosalind's work is widely collected throughout the United States.

Alongside her visual art, she is a published poet whose interest in women’s lives, memory, observation, and the unexpected connections between images and experience informs all her creative work.