june rhoda

back to artists

images about the artist

When I started painting seriously the question was: what do I want my work to communicate? I wanted universal themes so as to reach as many people as possible. An ambitious goal but glorious to work toward goals such as this.
Each one of my paintings is a world unto itself. The process leads me down new roads sometimes full of adventure sometimes full of doubt and pain always full of challenge. I love that the spectator walks into my painting and joins me in my journey.
My work is a combination of two cultures, the Caribbean and around Boston. Sometimes one is more prominent, sometimes the other. This is what makes my work unique. It is when I am communicating with my work that things begin to happen. Then in turn the work will communicate with the spectator. Paintings are not finished when I want them to be-they are finished when they are finished
During the process of painting a work takes on a life of its own. It is up to me to recognize it.
When art is not a true representation of life, it is decoration.
My intense layering of the paint creates a world within.
Persistence is a good quality to have. Experience, trial and error, love and hate, overcoming adversity, all these help me to create art.
When I was a teenager in high school the study of the universe and the planets fascinated me. Unbelievably, today after sixty years have passed, I am painting my planets. And I admit with a smile when I say this. In the beginning I didn't know that the spheres were planets but when it came to me I had no doubt.

June Rhoda currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and has a studio at 450 Harrison Avenue in the South End.