Rosie Sanders: By any other name

In September 2019 Jonathan Cooper, Chelsea, will be holding an exhibition of over twenty new paintings by the internationally-collected artist Rosie Sanders, whose work has been awarded five Gold Medals by the Royal Horticultural Society, has been exhibited in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens, and is held in the collection of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University.

 

Working from her home and studio in Devon, Sanders paints in watercolour, often on an enlarged scale that makes her paintings instantly recognisable. Technically masterful and emotionally expressive, these paintings seek to communicate the artist’s inner life, their titles evoking the passions of poetry and literature rather than the botanical identification of their subject.

 

The exhibition will focus primarily on the beauty of the rose, and will feature many of the works included in the publication Rosie Sanders’ Roses: A celebration in botanical art, which will be released by Batsford in September 2019.

 

Sometimes I think painting is like looking through smoked glass; images and shapes emerge and recede; patterns are constantly changing and although things are seen they are more ambiguous, triggering memories and reflections otherwise hidden deep in the psyche. My work is a way of connecting with myself and communicating something of that knowledge to others.

 

- Rosie Sanders