The allegorical watercolors of Roe LiBretto portray shared human experiences using a unique watercolor technique. Each painting serves as a surreal meditative piece which offers an opportunity for the viewer to gain insight into their own subconscious / unconscious self.

 

The grainy texture of each piece is created by painting over a finished watercolor with a topcoat of ink or tempera paint and, after that topcoat is dry, washing the painting. Roe uses this technique to create work that, “... most closely resembles the imagery as it appears to me, as if a scrim upon which these characters perform was dropped between me and the physical world.” The act of washing each painting also ritualizes her acknowledgment that a painting is the physical manifestation of information found in what Carl Jung referred to as the collective unconscious.

 

Born in Brooklyn, Roe studied at the Brooklyn Museum, the School of Visual Arts, and City College of New York. She worked in publication design and customized motorcycles on the then-not-so-hip Lower East Side. Her drawings and sculptures were exhibited internationally and she received commissions, from the New York City Cultural Council and the Massachusetts State Council on the Arts, to create public kinetic installations. 

 

Roe's allegories are internationally collected and can be seen on her website roelibrettofineart.com, at Ghostwolf Gallery in Albuquerque, NM and at Hado-Mark Gallery in Lenox, MA.