ROSEMARY COTNOIR (active)
Rosemary Cotnoir is a Connecticut-based painter whose work explores the intersection of landscape, pattern, and abstraction. Through richly layered compositions inspired by marshes, forests, rivers, estuaries, and the changing rhythms of the natural world, she creates paintings that transform observation into vibrant arrangements of color, texture, and gesture. Rather than depicting specific locations, Cotnoir’s work reflects a deeply personal interpretation of the environments that surround her, resulting in images that balance recognition and imagination.
Born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, Cotnoir developed an early passion for art that remained a constant throughout her life. She studied fine art and design at the New York Phoenix School of Design before continuing her education at the New York School of Interior Design, where she cultivated an appreciation for architecture, decorative arts, pattern, and spatial design. Further studies at the Silvermine Artists Guild in Norwalk, Connecticut, provided extensive training in painting, watercolor, and life drawing, laying the foundation for a practice that would evolve over several decades.
Although she maintained an active studio practice while pursuing a professional career, Cotnoir began devoting herself to painting full-time upon returning to Connecticut in 2005 after spending sixteen years in Southern California. Today she lives and works in Westbrook, Connecticut, where the shoreline landscape serves as an enduring source of inspiration. The marshes, wetlands, and estuaries of eastern Connecticut frequently inform her work, while a small stand of trees in her own backyard has inspired years of observation through changing seasons and conditions. These experiences provide the visual language from which her paintings emerge.
Cotnoir’s artistic process is intuitive and exploratory. Working primarily in oil and acrylic, she constructs paintings through successive layers of color, organic forms, and intricate mark-making. A significant influence on her development was her study of stone carving with Darrell Petit and Andy Davis, a discipline she pursued for nearly a decade. The stone carvers’ philosophy that “the stone will tell you what it wants” continues to inform her approach to painting, where each stage of a work suggests the next and compositions emerge through a process of discovery rather than predetermined design.
While her work often incorporates elements associated with abstraction, Cotnoir resists strict categorization. Instead, she views her paintings as interpretations of recognizable subjects filtered through a highly personal visual language. Her use of pattern and ornament owes much to the influence of Gustav Klimt, whose Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I made a profound impression upon her when viewed in person. Since that experience, she has incorporated decorative patterning and luminous metallic passages into her work. She also cites Indigenous Australian art and traditional Indian art as important aesthetic influences.
Cotnoir has exhibited extensively throughout New England and has earned recognition through numerous juried exhibitions and awards. Among the milestones she considers most significant are her acceptance into the highly competitive Nor’Easter Exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art, acceptance into Silvermine Arts Center’s A-ONE Exhibition in consecutive years, and an invitation to join the Silvermine Artists Guild. She has also received honors from the Essex Art Association, Lyme Art Association, National Association of Women Artists, Mattatuck Museum, Guilford Art League, and New Haven Paint & Clay Club.
Her work has been featured in Los Angeles Sunday Times Magazine and Southern California Home & Garden, and is represented in corporate and private collections throughout the United States, including the Walker Art Collection and Aspen Re-Finance Group International. In 2024, she was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Pegasus Gallery of Connecticut State Community College, further highlighting her growing presence within the contemporary art community. Most recently, Vose Galleries is proud to present her first solo exhibition with a commercial gallery, marking another important milestone in her artistic career.
At the center of Cotnoir’s practice is an enduring fascination with the possibilities of paint itself. Guided by intuition, observation, and a lifelong love of pattern and nature, she continues to create works that invite viewers to look beyond individual details and experience each painting as a unified and immersive whole.
