Rosemarie Forsythe
Artist

Inspired by living and working around the world, Rosemarie Forsythe paints in a style that celebrates the power of ideas that have influenced the course of history or changed the way we think about the world. 

Rosemarie paints on canvas, board and paper in a fine art style reminiscent of Renaissance-era illuminated manuscripts.  Instead of words, she embeds symbols, math/science equations, algorithms, ornaments, and/or intellectual puzzles in her modern art.  She layers acrylics, gouache, flashe, gold leaf, mica chips, and/or handmade paper to achieve a look reminiscent of Byzantine icons or 15th century illuminated manuscripts.  Her paintings are rich in texture and include matte colors illuminated with gold or silver.  

Rosemarie creates paintings in a series.  Some of the series she continues to create are, for example, 

the Empire Twilight paintings.  These works include photos and texts from her officially declassified diplomatic reporting cables from the end of the Soviet Union (1989-91) and other mementos of her life as a US diplomat and policymaker.  Other series highlight subjects such as the work of famous female scientists, seventeen equations that changed the world, botanicals that are the basis of modern medicines, and scenes of nature with a hint of mystery and magic.

Before she became a full-time artist almost a decade ago, Rosemarie lived in seven countries and visited over 60 countries in the course of her past careers as a U.S. diplomat, policymaker, and international business executive.  Self-taught in art, she found a way to combine her intellectual and prior work interests with her artistic sense to create a unique style of painting. 

 In 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Department of State's Art in Embassies Program selected several of Rosemarie's works to be displayed in U.S. Embassies or U.S. Ambassador residences in Austria, Jordan and Bolivia.  Her art was also chosen for the Brussels office of Rose Gottemoeller, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO.  Rosemarie’s works are in private collections in Qatar, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Togo, Australia, the UK, the US, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.  Rosemarie's paintings have been in dozens of solo and group exhibitions.  Rosemarie is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

On August 11, 2024, Rosemarie"s work was mentioned as a highlight by the Washington Post's art critic, Mark Jenkins in his review of a group exhibition at the Fred Schnider Gallery.  See article below and the Nature Paintings tab to see two of the three paintings.