Becky Jane Rosen

About the Artist

Becky Jane Rosen is an artist in Portland, Maine. Rosen’s project Matrilineal is partially funded through the Maine Arts Commission’s Springboard Grant. Matrilineal is an experimental quilting project where messages and questions about personal finance, often stemming from Rosen’s mother’s teachings, are embroidered onto quilted works. These quilts build on what Rosen learned as she considers how these principles can be updated and reinterpreted to address contemporary issues like student loan debt, income inequality, the widening wealth gap, and income and wealth disparities based on gender and race.

Rosen’s paintings explore the relationship between the public and private nature of physical and psychological spaces. Rosen’s initial photographic source materials are transformed through paint and surreal imagery to speak more broadly about learning to live with emotional scars and burdens. Painting these images and sharing the resulting artwork has become both a public and private act, as if a door were ajar at a vulnerable, revealing moment.

Rosen completed her MFA in Painting from Hunter College in 2018. Rosen’s work was featured at the 2018 Center for Maine Contemporary Art’s Biennial and the 2018 MFA issue of New American Paintings. Rosen’s work is in the Wheaton College Permanent Collection as well as several other private collections.