Mixed Media Paintings by Frederika Roeder

Artist | Painter

American Artist Frederika B. Roeder is a 4th Generation Southern Californian. Born in Palo Alto, California, her work follows Minimalism and the Light & Space Movement rooted in her experiences as a skier and surfer as part of Southern California’s iconic surf culture. Her abstract paintings are luminous expressions of the majesty of the natural world. Frederika exhibits her work continuously, with over 50 shows in museums and galleries since 2020. Exhibitions in 2024/25 include the 23rd Japan International Art Exchange Exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum curated by Julienne Johnson with chairman Katsu Shimmin; the Museo Camuno, Breno Italy; Galerie Diderot, Orquevaux, France; The Korean Culture Center, Los Angeles CA; Los Angeles Art Association/Art 1307/Instituto Italiano di Cultura with curator Cynthis Penna, consultant for contemporary art Centro Museale MUSA Portici, Italy.

A graduate of the University of Southern California, Frederika studied fine art at UC Irvine, UCLA, Pasadena City College, the Art Center of Design, Hunter College, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. While in New York, she studied under John Baldessari and worked at Vogue Magazine under Diana Vreeland and Richard Avedon.

 

Artist’s Statement

Painting is a shared emotional experience. In my own work, I begin with a powerful memory linked to a particular place in time: to an emotional experience with the physical world. The art is then the distillation and tracing of that memory through color, texture, shape and brushstroke-palette knife to the emotional place where it lives. This might be a place of sadness, happiness, peace, exhilaration, or awe. The acknowledgment of emotion is transformative and teaches the lesson that everything in this world moves forward - beyond the edges of canvas, beyond us, beyond the memories themselves.

My paintings are also often a plea to our greater world to treasure the natural beauty and terrain we take for granted, as well as an homage to the generations of humans who have lived on this land before us.

Having grown up in Southern California, what I know best are the wilds of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Chaparral of the desert floor, and the relentless restlessness of the Pacific Ocean. All rugged terrain. However, over the past decade I have been fortunate enough to travel and paint globally, frequently participating in workshops and Artist in Residency Programs in locations as diverse as San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Civitella d'Agliano, and Val Camonica, Italy; and most recently at Château d’Orquevaux in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France.

While the environmental backdrop for my painting is about color - shadowy mountain peaks, brownish purple scrub, slate blue ocean - my experiences in these new locations have inspired me with a new vision of color. I have been described as a colorist, and this area reintroduced me to the magic of green.

My painting “Olympic Rings of Chateau Orquevaux”, is one which I completed during my 2024 Residency at the Château d’Orquevaux. It is a distillation of my experiences there – where the explosion of green captivated me, like magical forests of old. From the manicured spring green of the lawns stretching out from the glittering Château to the beautiful verdant green pastures dotted with white Charolais cattle, to the pure green of May forests slashed with sparkling sunlight – everywhere I turned I was surrounded by green.

As a minimalist, my work is always an experiment with color - or lack of color - and the challenge of communicating within a narrow range of execution. In “Olympic Rings over Château Orquevaux” I used green, gold and white acrylic and oil bar along with found objects including jewelry, tie dye and a stamp, to symbolize both the incredible verdancy of the region, but also its legacy of civilization.

The history of Orquevaux speaks to a pre-industrial time period when champagne, grains, canals, & forges were the backbone of the French economy. The remaining forests hearken back to a time when they sheltered wild deer, fox and boar. This area is treasured by the French for its timeless villages, ancient forests, lakes, canals,and beautiful agricultural fields. It is comforting to know that the French government is taking steps to preserve this history and beauty for generations to come.

The rural yet elegant quality of the region touched my heart deeply as did the beauty of the Château Orquevaux and the people there. I was taken back to a more youthful and innocent time when I dreamed of fairy tales coming true. The word enchantment became a mainstay in the vocabulary describing the residency experience at Château Orquevaux, and the metamorphosis began when both as an artist and person I experienced, once again, the transformative power of both peacefulness, and youthful dreams come true. The true magic remains in the indescribable beauty of Orquevaux and Chateau Orquevaux!!