April 2014

Change of Place

I paint the changing American landscape, particularly real estate development, because it is constant, current, and surprisingly disappointing. This development intrudes upon the places we live, in both memory and real time. Housing units and shopping malls are often ill-placed. Planning feels incongruous, awkward and imposed upon the landscape. This discontinuity is unsettling, curious, funny, and sad. My paintings respond to this.

Construction sites and developments provide new vistas that are neither picturesque nor bucolic, as their names might suggest. Autumn River View, Autumn Meadows, The Woods of Park Place, and The Woods of Tibor Valley are gone. They are now memorialized in stone-carved entrance signage announcing the new neighborhood. Words used as signifiers for nature. I paint Maple Cliff, but I don’t paint maples.

The reality of woods, farms and rolling hills being flattened under mega-houses, strip malls, and fifty-five and older units has collided with my sensibilities as a landscape painter. Major influences for me have been the Hudson Bay painters and the Luminists. These early 20th century painters found divinity in nature. In my 21st century paintings, nature is encroached upon by man.Kim Parr Roenigk lives and works in the Baltimore Washington metro area. She received an MFA in Painting from Yale University and a BFA in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Kim’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and in Berlin. Her work is in several private collections including Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazeroff, and David and Suzie Cordish.

Kim paints the changing American landscape. In her work the Romantic belief of divinity found in nature meets the reality of progress found in consumption.

Visit the artist’s website at kimparr.com