Untitled

Clare Rojas draws on influences ranging from Pennsylvania Dutch symbols to Native American culture, to critically reflect on gender roles and expectations in our society. She combines figurative paintings with bold and repetitive patterns to create a quilt-like effect. Quilting evokes a powerful symbol for Rojas, who sees it historically “as one of the only platforms for women to engage in politics.” Untitled combines Rojas’s signature quilt motif with a new direction in her work—what she calls “domestic abstract interiors.” Through a focus on color and line, these abstracted interior spaces expand her exploration of gender into new terrain, as she thinks about masculine and feminine energy, tension, and balance.

Large-scale installations such as Untitled encompass the viewer, inviting participation in the work. Rojas herself personifies this construct: She occasionally performs as her alter-ego, the folk singer Peggy Honeywell, using part of her installation as a stage. A self-taught guitarist and banjo-player, Rojas uses the Honeywell character as a means to directly connect with her audience, extending the intimacy she seeks to create in her paintings. Honeywell dresses to blend in with the characters in her painting, just as the red stripes link the seated figure of Untitled to her surroundings. Through such visual echoes Rojas asks us to consider how we are affected by our environments, and how we in turn shape our world.

Clare Rojas: Everything's Connected from Smart Museum of Art on Vimeo.

Clare Rojas: Quilts from Smart Museum of Art on Vimeo.

Clare Rojas: Peggy Honeywell from Smart Museum of Art on Vimeo.