“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty” wrote British Romantic poet John Keats.

Painter Rosemarie Evans cites the poet’s words as the philosophy that explains much of her work. Perhaps the close observation and expression of beauty makes us think beyond our finite selves. We can explore these ideas in St. Anthony on the Desert’s October online exhibit “Chasing Beauty, Finding Truth: Paintings by Rosemarie Evans.” (st-anthony.net/the-arts-council.)

After WWII, Japanese Americans leased land in south Phoenix and grew fields of flowers for local and foreign buyers. One of these farmers welcomed Rosemarie on his farm to paint and she became a regular fixture there. Years later, after state flower exporters took over the market and these farms, the once a popular attraction had to close.

During that period, Gammage Auditorium in Tempe held “Paradise Lost,” an exhibition of Rosemarie’s paintings honoring the magnificently colored fields that were once there.

In one of these paintings, “View of Camelback,” Rosemarie first displayed the mountain in the distance. Then she suggests fields of flowers with thick, energetic, cursive brushstrokes. Much like her own signature, the brushstrokes scribble elegantly. Next, a saturated yellow field comes forward at the front of the painting, complemented by powerful reddish brown, purples, and blues of the earth. In this painting, as in all her work, she keeps everything “slightly off kilter.”

This technique, she explains, makes the scene vibrate with movement. Perhaps the truth in this painting is, as William Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Art is Long, and Time is fleeting.” In other words, the fields are gone but the artist makes them timeless.

For many years “The Farm” in south Phoenix has been a favorite place for Rosemarie to “chase beauty.” It has “farm to table” eateries surrounded by pecan trees, chickens, and vegetable and herb fields. Rosemarie exhibited and sold her art there, and taught painting there as well.

In one of her works of The Farm, “Bring in the Harvest,” she paints an old truck in buoyant, strikingly deep blue paint. The sky moves and so does the tree she has nestled into it, her brush stroke making the tree blow magically in the sky. Then, with a creamy bright white, she molds the shirt of a gardener. With curving lines, she expresses the human body’s grace as it carries its burden.

In another painting of The Farm, “My Burden is Light,” a gardener takes up the whole canvas, his white shirt bursting out in front of a green field. He carries a load of flowers over his shoulders. While he hunches over with what seems like a heavy load, the artist curiously titles it “My Burden is Light,” a title that reflects her contemplative thoughts on this scene, on the burdens of human life, on what might alleviate them. This gardener becomes a symbol of and reflection on the human condition: what will lighten our heavy load.

In these paintings, Rosemarie has chased beauty and found it, but she also has an epiphany each time. A truth unfolds for her as she reflects on something beautiful. That happens to us, too.

When beauty stops us in our tracks, we are stunned, and for a moment we ponder the

transcendent.

St. Anthony Art Council’s purpose is to create a hub for artists, art appreciators, and any person desiring to be a part of our aesthetic movement. If you are interested in working with the program, call St. Anthony on the Desert Church, 480-451-0860 and leave a message for Becky Evans.