MEET THE ARTIST - ROSALIE KOHLER

A bit about my story and the inspiration behind my work

My images arise from a deep reverence for the Earth and her seasons. I am inspired by the stories of the land that I hear whispering in the leaves and murmuring in the waters.

As I explore the intersection between inner landscapes and the outer world, I seek to evoke the liminal spaces between waking and sleeping, the known and unknown. In our fast-paced societies dominated by technology, my paintings are an invitation to dream, to reconnect with a sense of enchantment, and tap into the power, medicine and beauty of Nature.

The Earth can soothe my soul like nothing else. Painting the Earth roots me into that sense of calm. It helps me rekindle hope that, despite all the pain and devastation in the world, we can rewild, remembering ourselves back into belonging with the web of life.

Although I have recently been adventuring into the territory of print, watercolour is my main medium. I paint dreamscapes, weaving together the tangible and more subtle layers through a combination of detailed fine line ink drawings and more expressive watercolour, embellished sometimes with gold leaf. My images are inhabited by wildlife, wild places and the wild feminine. They are often inspired by myth, folktale and the turn of the seasons.

Alongside a spectrum of watery blues, natural earth and plant pigments are coming to dominate my colour palette. I especially love to paint with wild pigments that I have foraged myself on lake shores and in woodlands. They allow me to enter more deeply into a sense of co-creation with the Living Earth, stirring in me an awareness of inter-being, something that I seek to express in my work.

FINDING CALM IN THE POWER OF NATURE

The wild ways of the wild world are calling us back to our true nature, calling us back into relationship with the ecosystems of the Land and our own bodies.

A BIT OF BACKGROUND

I am a British artist with Irish roots who lives in the Black forest in Germany.

Becoming a mother over 20 years ago reignited the creative flame within me, but it wasn’t until I became seriously ill that creativity came to take a central place in my life.

I began to paint my inner landscape. As I tried to make meaning from my experience, elements of myth and folktale appeared in my images. I found myself exploring personal and collective stories and began to envision new ones. Painting became an anchor, helping me encounter the medicine of Nature through the tip of my brush, reconnecting me with a sense of wonder, beauty, wholeness and possibility. Slowly I began to recover. I found other women who shared similar experiences, and I came to understand what was happening in my body, brain and being. I learnt tools and practices to support my healing, and I made space for creativity at the centre of my days.

Over time I have come to understand my healing process within a greater arc of rewilding. The journey has led me away from the tarmac and the carefully sign-posted routes, into the undergrowth and between the trees, back to the power of dreaming and rest. The twisting path has taken me to the Himalayas in Nepal, Carlton Hill in Scotland, the Black Forest in Germany, the Swiss Alps, the temples in Malta, and down hospital corridors. It has opened me to the landscapes of motherhood and the mysteries of the female body, to seasonal festivals, earth medicine, ancient sites, wild swimming, the power of deep rest and the intricate workings of the nervous system.

The journey has returned me to a knowing that I am part of the creative life-force that moves through the Earth, that turns the seasons and moves the tides.

I have learnt that beneath the conditioning and trauma there is sacred land yearning to be tended to.

By honouring the cycles and seasons of the Earth, as we honour our own cycles and seasons, we can begin to restore balance for ourselves and for the planet. When I create, I am listening for the song that is calling us home.

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