Caitlin Rosolen

Caitlin Rosolen is a Southwest Florida-based artist creating a variety of work including large-scale abstract acrylic paintings, photography, and mixed media. As a person who has always found peace in death and the process of dying, it seemed only natural that the subject made itself prominent in her work. Marrying the science of documentation with the gestural expression of abstraction, Caitlin captures the moment between minutes. Creating permanence in a process that is naturally ephemeral.

Artist Statement

My work is a culmination of moments. Ephemeral states that exist solely in the time of their creation. An imprint, a time stamp, a fleeting instance.

It is through the use of multiple mediums that the subject of my work connects. With my photography, I focus on documentation of the deceased. A crucial moment within a specimen’s overall decay and decomposition. An exact moment in time that will never exist in that exact form ever again. A still of a process that cannot be stopped, no matter how hard one may try to prolongate the act.

My abstract work takes splices from within these photographed moments, and focuses on the flurry of activity occurring during the decomposition state. It is through documenting the memory of movement within the fleeting moments of such variables that my work resides. I procure stills and fragments, mid-decomposition. Then with gestural strokes and shading, I recreate the multitude of movements that must take place in order for decomposition to occur.

Focusing on memory of movement, each of my abstracted paintings contains my muscle memory of a specific moment or past experience. I begin the process of obtaining the abstracted shape by replaying the instance and drawing the motions of the act or experience on to a piece of paper. I am then able to enlarge the abstracted drawing on to a canvas and begin the painting process. The abstract style was chosen to represent the memory of motion and intensity, as opposed to the visual of the experience. The scale of the work is meant to overwhelm and engulf the viewer into a sense of insignificance.

While creating my work, I am forced to reflect, provoking my own psyche. This brings myself to question and analyze the personal choices I continue to make. From actions come reactions. Once a decision is put into action, there is no stopping the inevitable. Death and decomposition are bigger than us, and in the end we all succumb to it.