About

Kaitlin Roney

For as long as I can remember, I have felt compelled to create. When I was very young, that meant turning stones and mud into little homes, or making snow sculptures in the winter. As I grew, I danced, wrote plays, and illustrated stories. By the time I was a teenager, I grew extremely fascinated with perfecting my rendering skills, and filled sketchbooks with drawings and paintings of everything I could observe. Upon entering college, I began to form a more contextual body of work, blending my poems and world views into my art. I realize now that I was very lucky to have incredible art teachers and inspiring guides along the way, nurturing and feeding my passion.  

I am 41 now, and not much has changed. I still experiment and play with materials, I write and produce plays for children, I dance when I feel moved by music, and I challenge myself to find a greater meaning, beyond myself, in all of my work. The main difference between now and then, is that I am now in a position where I can be the guide to a blooming artists and commit to various bodies of work. It is important for me to share my passion and skill with others. I am the cofounder of Art Center of Rochester, located in Rochester New York. I believe that Art experiences should be accessible to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic standing or any other external influence. I teach artists of all ages and abilities, conduct research, facilitate workshops, attend artist retreats, visit museums and galleries, and draw and paint weekly alongside other artists. My murals and chalk art are also an important part of what I do, because they help me connect with the community.

I am currently working on a series that I call ‘Life Lines’ and plan to have an exhibition, which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2024. This body of work blends poetry and visual art in a series of oil paintings. Every line from the poem will be accompanied by a large painting. The paintings will be completed in an expressive-realistic style, and play with the idea of focus. I will be intentional about the shapes created by negative space and only intentional areas of focus will be 'fleshed out', while others remain implied. This approach is meant to portray how moments may feel unfinished in some ways, but very grounding at the same time. If viewed in order, the paintings are meant to provide a glimpse into the various stages of life and development, from youth to adulthood. Each line of the poem is meant to reveal perceptions of the world that stem from a personal space, yet echo a universal awareness. The fact that I have reached a place as a woman, where I look back to find meaning and answers as much as I look forward, has sparked an intense interest in the passage of time. Therefore, in this series, I will focus on the life and journey from girlhood to womanhood. I plan to draw on my own memories and understandings, along with those of family members and friends, to embody the shifts in our perspectives over a lifetime. I hope to complete ten large paintings, in order to roughly represent ten decades of life. The large scale of each painting is intended to make the viewer feel drawn in, as if they were there, inside the memory. Life Lines, as a series, represents the sweetness, humor, insecurity, fear, elation, wisdom, loneliness, self acceptance, and other characteristics that are part of aging. I view aging as a privilege that so many are denied of. Growing older should be celebrated, but we live in a society that glorifies youth and treats growing old as a curse. I hope to reveal the fundamental dignity that can be found in the most fleeting moments, in the simplest of verses, at every stage of life. Each line of a poem informs the next, just as each phase of life shapes the person we become.