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Rokhaya Waring Biography
Rokhaya Waring’s most lasting memories of her early childhood are of the outdoors: camping across the U.S., hiking mountains, or closer to home, milking goats and spinning honey from beehives. She recorded these experiences daily in sketchbooks and journals helping to keep these memories alive while forming the foundation of her career as an artist. French by her mother, the spirit of Impressionism and Plein Air painting with its constant change in light, color and mood, became a natural extension of her sensibilities and continues to lend vibrancy and power to her work.
“I paint the way I cook and the way I garden. Inspiration is an appetite; canvas and paint are my soil bed and seeds. The process is immediate and physical: I delve in with my hands. When I prepare a meal, shape my garden or work at my easel, I hope to bring out the spirit of nature and my place in it, through flavors, colors and textures- a transient beauty that is so often bittersweet.”
Waring graduated from Princeton with a BA in Art History and the Visual Arts, and spent her first summer painting in the ancient Provencal village of Forcalquier. Her principal home for most of twenty years, the pastoral countryside perfectly suited her artistic vision while providing a varied and endless vein of inspiration. The artist also visited and painted in Israel, Italy, Scandinavia and the UK, and in later years, the Caribbean and Tahiti.
Rokhaya's paintings are held in hundreds of collections internationally, and notable private collectors include Andre Agassi and Brooke Shields. She has exhibited in dozens of solo and group juried shows in Boston, New York, San Diego, Paris and Provence. Waring is featured in the book "100 Artists of New England" (Schiffer 2011) and will be featured in: "The American Flag in Contemporary Art", (Schiffer, due late 2015).