Kathy Roseth: Love in the Eighth Decade

July 2 - August 1, 2026

First Thursday Art Walk - Thursday July 2nd, 5-8pm
Artist Talk with Ben Roseth - Saturday July 4th, 2-4pm
Closing Reception - Saturday August 1st, 4-6pm

A celebration of love as the web of human connection, featuring portraits of family members and friends who have shaped the artist’s life. Ordinary love burns brighter in the awareness of death. “Life is short, fragile and precious, and love is the point.”

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This exhibition is a very personal celebration of “the love that from our birth / over and around us lies,” as an old hymn says.  Most of the images are based on snapshots of family and friends I’ve taken over decades and kept in a shoebox in my closet, which I take out and rummage through from time to time to enjoy the flood of memories.

Now in my eighth decade (74), I find that the word “love” has a meaning that’s broader and darker than it had in my 20’s.  Love is the web of connections that keeps me centered in my life, even as my body starts to creak, my short-term memory weakens and death takes more of the people around me.  It’s never been clearer that life is short, fragile and precious, and love is the point.

The exhibit features 27 small portraits of some of the family members, friends and colleagues who have shaped my life. Each is painted in a spirit of gratitude and awe at how beautiful, how miraculous, each person is.  The larger works repeat the theme of radiant life that is brighter and more intense because of the awareness of death.  As the poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “Death is the mother of beauty.”