CR Rousseau is best known for dreamlike abstracts inspired by fashion moments, the human form and her favorite west coast locales. Originally from the Greater Seattle-area, she’s spent many summers with family in California. The laid-back, coastal lifestyle of Carmel-by-the-Sea and San Francisco inform her work. Primarily self-taught, she’s studied formally and informally with visual artists. Aspiring to forever be considered an emerging artist, she works to keep a naiveté aesthetic with bold colors and simplified forms. She works to keep an open, childlike perspective, one that is both playful and imaginative.

Rousseau pays acute attention to the emotion of color and the feel of form. Her paintings are layered and multi-faceted compositions that engage and provoke though use of her gestural movements. She’s influenced by the works of Joan Mitchell, Cy Twombly and Gerhardt Richter. “I’m interested in finding new ways of expressing an emotional aftertaste of a particular moment as well as connecting to universal human experiences. I am multi-lingual in my visual and conceptual vocabulary which has emerged through a focus on points between abstract, impressionist and expressionist work. I’ve painted since I was a child and have always been drawn to new ideas and techniques,” said Rousseau.