Atmospheres and Orbits

A playful new series of paintings done in oil and cold wax depicting an attitude of experimentation and play by Nancy Roach

I create exciting, energetic and spontaneous abstract paintings. My work is inspired by the stunning Colorado Landscape. As a young woman in my 20’s I explored these rocky landscapes as a rock climber-climbing extensively in Lumpy Ridge and Rocky Mountain National Park. I no longer climb, but am still active in the mountains. This wilderness continues to affect my artwork and my paintings remember the dramatic canyons, rivers and mountains of the West.

In this new series, “Atmospheres and Orbits” I am interested in exploring the simplicity of composition, along with the complexity of the painting surface. Intuition, promptitude, the visceral and the accidental offer an interesting contrast while working in oil and cold wax, which is inherently time consuming with many, many layers of this medium. There is a stillness in this body of work that is singular to this group of paintings.

Nancy is an artist and an educator. Her earlier incarnations in artistic expression were that of a goldsmith and sculptor. She exhibited these works nationally in galleries as well as art shows including The Cherry Creek Art Show in Denver and the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington DC. She studied sculpture at the University of Illinois, Champaign and earned her MA in Art Education and MFA in Art and Design. Currently she is enjoying her expression using acrylics, oil and cold wax processes and teaches 3D Art at Cheyenne Mountain HIgh School in Colorado Springs.