Orlando – Valencia College will display “personal space,” an exhibit by Central Florida artist Rose Thome Casterline, from June 10 through July 29 at Valencia’s Anita S. Wooten Gallery.
The college will hold a gallery reception to open the exhibit on June 10 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Casterline will give an artist lecture at 7:30 p.m. Admission to the gallery is free.
Casterline’s “personal space” is a visual commentary on human eccentricity expressed through body language, notes Valencia gallery curator Jackie Otto Miller. “Casterline is a storyteller who uses costume and dress to create stereotypes that act from unexpected scripts in out-of-context plots. A man dressed in conservative 1950s attire studies a cell phone in his hand. He sits on the back of a woman who lies on the floor on an exercise ball reading a book. Meaning is complicated, subtle, changeable and left to the viewer.”
Casterline’s process is a collaboration between drawing and painting. Otto Miller notes that she uses sketched lines, charcoal and paint to keep the eye of the viewer in motion.
“Rich monochromatic planes, luminous with light from an inside source, are inscribed with drips and symbolic marks and notations that link all parts and pieces of the composition into one sweeping rhythm,” notes Otto Miller.
Casterline received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kent State University and her Master of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has been exhibiting her drawings, prints and paintings regionally and nationally over the past 20 years. Her figurative work has been featured in several publications including New American Paintings (Vols. 34 and 52), House Beautiful and Coastal Living. Multiple private and public art collections house her drawings and paintings with nearly 50 works commissioned and purchased by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). One of these projects included the Sea Island Series, a group of paintings commissioned by SCAD and exhibited at the G-8 Summit in 2004.
She currently teaches life drawing and painting at Valencia College in Orlando and Rollins College in Winter Park. The work in this exhibit was partially funded by a United Arts Professional Artist Grant.
The exhibition runs through July 29. Gallery hours are: Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Fridays from 8 a.m. to noon.
The gallery is located in Building 3 on Valencia’s East Campus, 701 N. Econlockhatchee Trail, Orlando. For more information, call 407-582-2268.
