Arts entertainment

Linear Perspective

Artist Loren Rosenstein utilizes her modern
design background in the creation of her paintings.

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

t's been almost 20 years since Loren
Rosenstein has lived in Michigan, but she
returned to her childhood home to open her
first exhibit of paintings, "Lines in Motion,"
which runs through the end of November at Ann
Arbor's Pierre Paul Art Gallery.
The pieces extend her linear interests as an architec-
tural designer while freeing up the directions that her
lines can take. Twenty-five of the 47 works in the
show are framed.
"As a response to my regimented
background and an interest in classic
modernism, I work with layers of lines
and grids, softened from the drafting
board and now rough-edged and fluid,"
says Rosenstein, 40. The former
Michigander works as an interior
designer based in northern Virginia just
outside Washington, D.C.
"I've compressed three-dimensional
spatial relationship studies onto the
two-dimensional plane of the canvas.
I've also used the modernist's palette

and employed the saturated and vibrant colors of
cobalt blue, cadmium red and yellow, rich apple
green and strong black and white."
The collection, in acrylic and oil pastels with
deliberate layering of colors, has diverse themes:
Some pieces resemble textile studies, while others
draw upon primitive forms.
Additional works can be interpreted as relaxed
topographic surveys of farmland, a reflection of the
hours the artist spent in flight lessons with her father
over the countrysides of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Rosenstein, the daughter of attorneys Benita Ober
Teschendorf of Howell and Calvin Rosenberg of Florida,

grew up in a Jewish household in Huntington Woods,
an area "with sophisticated taste in the arts," she says.
Jewish experiences were part of her routine at
Camp Tamarack and at camps sponsored by the
Jewish Community Center.
"I always was an artist, but academics were
stressed at home," says Rosenstein, who concentrat-
ed on pottery until 12 years ago, when she changed
to painting.
"At first, I downplayed art and used it strictly for
enjoyment, but I went on to earn a bachelor of fine arts
degree at the University of Michigan School of Art and
Architecture, where I specialized in interior design."
Rosenstein's first job was as an
interior designer with an Atlanta
architectural firm. After moving to
D.C., she specialized in corporate
design with another group of archi-
tects. Now in private practice and
doing residential work, she can give
more time to her painting in a home
studio that has enormous window
space.
Planning her studio was part of an
overall renovation of the farmhouse
that has become the family home

Artist
Loren
Rosenstein:
Finding
inspiration
in joyful
experiences.

Rosenstein compresses the three-dimensional spatial relationship

studies of her design work

onto the two-dimensional

plane of the canvas.

jai
11/9 No. 121
2001

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-No. 131

No. 124