Education
She received her Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and previously attended the Rhode Island School of Design.
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Clare Rojas
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Rojas also plays guitar and banjo under the stage name Peggy Honeywell. As Peggy Honeywell, she wore a long wig and flouncy calico dresses, and sometimes, because she was shy, a paper bag over her head She has released two albums: and In her more recent work, Rojas has moved from figurative paintings into pure geometric abstraction.
Referencing West Coast modernism, Quaker art, Native American textiles, Byzantine mosaics, and Outsider art, Rojas tells stories through painting, installations, and video.
Often her narratives concern relationships between the sexes and among humans and animals, in their struggle to find harmony and balance. Many works quietly celebrate the traditional strengths of women, depicting them like Russian nesting dolls in conventional roles without critical undertones or hints of sexual exploitation.
Quilt-like patterns in vivid colors accentuate the folk art-inspired scenes present in some works, while simple geometric forms and stark interiors evoke Bauhaus design in others Recently, Rojas has focused her attention on the abstract shapes formed by architecture and shadow that dominate interior spaces, producing colorful, precise, abstract compositions on stretched linen.
Melding craft and fine art with unparalleled verve, Rojas produces witty work that is part Bauhaus, part Bonanza.
The May, 2001, installing “East Meets West”—three West Coast artists and their East Coast counterparts—at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia was a milestone for Rojas. lieutenant was her first museum show and it placed her in a context with an artist that to some extent she’d been modelling herself on. Rojas married fellow artist Barry McGee in 2005.
Kilgallen was a large influence on Rojas"s work.
Rojas did her best to honor Kilgallen and her work even after Kilgallen"s death in 2001.
