Caroline Rowntree (b.1941)
Clockwise from Top Left:
- Lily Pond, 2019
- Beyond the Fence, 2019
- Azalea Splash, 2019
- Longwood Tulips, 2019
Materials: Digital Art Printed on Willow Glass
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower, Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), Blue Neighborhood, Fifth Floor Patient Rooms. Lily Pond, a digital print on vinyl wallcovering, is also located in the Volunteer Services Office, Akron Campus, and the Second Floor Lobby.
Azalea Splash
Color immediately captivates the viewer in this digitally created painting. The artist draws us in with a rich interplay of related hues: cream and canary yellows, various shades of orange, and a spectrum of greens fading into whites. These vibrant tones are contrasted by deep charcoal flecked with lighter greys, with a surprising pop of pink. While much of the composition is abstract, these color fields are subtly overlaid with marks that evoke stems and the outlines of leaves, anchoring the piece in the natural world.
Although created entirely through digital means, the work retains the tactile feel of the artist’s hand. The sweeping brushstrokes, gestural lines, and delicate "doodling" all suggest the process of painting with a brush or fine pen, offering a sense of intimacy with the artist's creative process. The result is both an impression of a specific floral scene and a visual record of the artist's journey of thought and expression, blending the digital with the organic.
Beyond the Fence
This vibrant portrayal of a garden begins with a photograph or perhaps several, which the artist then digitized and transformed using drawing and painting software. In her work, the artist emphasizes surface, pattern, color, and shape, elements that come through even in these computer-generated marks, which evoke the texture of paint-laden brushstrokes with frayed edges, as though completed with a dry brush.
The artist chose a bold, hot palette of scarlets, ochres, oranges, and yellows, creating a striking contrast against the cooler deep greens on the left and the bright green patch on the right. The garden is framed by a solid fence along the left side, though this boundary gradually becomes more abstract, retreating into depth with simple vertical strokes.
In what appears to be a sandy area, a folding chair sits quietly, inviting the viewer to pause and reflect. The title, Beyond the Fence, challenges us to consider what lies beyond this frame of reference. Is it the view on the other side, or the invitation to step into the painting itself, to contemplate what is unseen and unexplored?
Lily Pond
The expansive horizontal format of this piece immediately evokes a sense of calm, inviting the viewer into its tranquil scene. Rowntree has selected a cool color palette: deep blues, violets, lavenders, and muted greens that permeate much of the composition, creating a serene, almost meditative atmosphere. This is contrasted by the brighter green and orange slashes, likely reeds or stems, on the right, adding a vibrant focal point to the work.
The lily pads and leaves emerge from areas of unmodulated color, with blacks and deeper greens suggesting the hidden depths of the pond. To further engage the viewer, the artist introduces delicate thin lines reminiscent of pen strokes, creating additional lily pads and reflections on the water. Despite being created digitally, these lines mimic the texture and fluidity of traditional brushstrokes, enhancing the organic feel of the piece.
These subtle strokes push and pull the viewer's gaze, drawing us in and pulling us out of the water, maintaining a dynamic rhythm that encourages contemplation and a deeper engagement with the scene.
Longwood Tulips
In this work, Rowntree places the viewer right in the heart of the tulip beds at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. Created digitally, the piece evokes the sensation of a painterly canvas, with broad, sweeping strokes of color forming the background and the vibrant splashes that define the tulip-filled landscape. The edges of the blossoms are softly frayed, adding a fluid, organic quality that contrasts beautifully with the bold, linear slashes of green, red, and purple, representing the densely packed stems.
Rowntree’s use of color graduates from bright to dark, moving from left to right, creating an impressionistic feel rather than a strict representation of the scene. This approach is typical of Rowntree’s work. She enjoys drawing the viewer in close to experiencing the abstract yet still recognizable shapes of leaves, flowers, and shrubs. The composition immerses us in a sensory experience of color and line, while playful, sketch-like lines delicately define the tulip profiles and other floral forms, guiding us in our interpretation of the larger color blocks.
Pictured from Left:
- Red Barns, 2012
- Sheering, 2013
- Long Barn, 2012
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower, Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), Green Neighborhood, Second Floor Outside N Elevators
These works were acquired for the Summa Health System — Akron Campus Wayfinding Project.
Red Barns
Materials: Archival digital print on watercolor paper, edition 5 of 25, 24" x 36"
Inspired by the farmlands of the Hudson Valley in New York, where the Rowntree family lived for many years, Red Barns draws upon the patterns and forms of the rural landscape. Like Long Barn, this digital print reflects Rowntree’s strong background in design, a career that shaped her aesthetic approach to abstract landscapes. These works, selected for Summa’s Wayfinding Project in the Green Neighborhood, are a fusion of nature and digital innovation, capturing the essence of the region while exploring space, color, and form.
Rowntree’s work is a product of contemporary technology and artistic practice. Starting with photographs she has taken, she selects and combines elements to create compositions that explore the interplay of color in space. Using digital tools and software to paint, much as a traditional artist might use brushes and pigments, Rowntree carefully constructs her digital paintings. The finished work exists as a digital file, not on canvas or paper, and is then printed with archival inks on watercolor paper chosen by the artist. This process results in a unique work of art, not a copy or reproduction, but a digital painting.
In Red Barns, Rowntree plays with color theory, employing green (a secondary color) and red (its complementary primary color) to define the composition. The barns, prominently featured in the center left, are rendered in rich red tones that suggest weight and presence. The green of the fields is a soft yellow-green, which fades gently into the distance, adding depth and tranquility to the scene. Blue, used in the sky, trees, and foreground elements, contrast beautifully with the warm hues, creating a dynamic yet peaceful balance. The red, blue, and yellow-green triad evokes stability while highlighting the subtle harmony of complementary colors.
The lower portion of the print is dominated by the gently rolling green fields, their smooth curves creating a sense of calm. In contrast, the distant red line of trees and the dramatic sky above convey a sense of movement. Rain-filled clouds swirl in the sky, hinting at the presence of wind and water. However, this dramatic sky does not disturb the calm of the landscape below, which remains serene and undisturbed, allowing the viewer to feel both the energy and tranquility of the natural world.
Rowntree’s digital art stands apart in the Summa Collection, offering a modern approach to color and composition while maintaining a timeless connection to the beauty of nature. Like Andrew Reach, another artist in the collection who uses digital tools for color exploration, Rowntree brings new dimensions to the relationship between technology and art, merging the digital and natural worlds in a harmonious and thought-provoking way.
Sheering
Materials: Archival digital print on watercolor paper, edition 5 of 25, 24" x 24"
Inspired by the serene countryside surrounding the village of Sheering in Hertfordshire, England, Sheering is a work where Caroline Rowntree abstracts the landscape, simplifying and recomposing the natural forms she observes. Using digital tools instead of traditional paint, Rowntree reimagines these forms, altering their colors and structures to align with her artistic vision. The result is a striking composition that balances simplicity with complexity, creating a dynamic sense of movement while maintaining an overall sense of calm.
Rowntree’s use of color is particularly masterful. The color triad of yellow-green, blue, and violet forms the foundation of the composition, with subtle variations of blue-greens and violets adding depth to the rolling hills. The colors are harmoniously blended and controlled, creating a peaceful yet vibrant landscape. By omitting orange-red, Rowntree achieves a pleasing unity in the color relationships, where even the most subtle shifts in tone are deliberate and carefully crafted.
Originally inspired by the patchwork quilts of American design, Rowntree’s digital paintings, including Sheering, evoke the texture and pattern of fabric. The broad swathes of color, abstracted into the landscape, resemble patches of repurposed fabric, their edges blurred and frayed like the seams of a quilt. These soft, fragmented outlines suggest the forms of hedgerows, trees, and distant forests, as well as the contour of a weather front on the horizon. Only a pair of rooftops and a narrow track on the hills subtly hint at human presence, grounding the landscape in a reality that feels both intimate and expansive.
The upper portion of the composition is dominated by an ambiguous sky, its vast, open space filling more than half of the vertical canvas. While the sky could be seen as ominous, its emptiness works in harmony with the rest of the composition, enhancing the quiet grandeur of the landscape. In this tranquil yet subtly complex piece, Rowntree invites the viewer to reflect on the balance between nature, abstraction, and the fleeting traces of human influence.
Long Barn
Materials: Archival digital print on watercolor paper, edition 3 of 25, 24" x 36"
Long Barn draws inspiration from the farmland surrounding Mohonk Mountain House, a resort in New York's Hudson Valley, where Caroline Rowntree captures the essence of the landscape through abstraction. In this piece, the bold simplification of the land and buildings contrasts with the more detailed representation of a cluster of trees and the tattered clouds in the upper part of the composition.
The process of abstraction, removing intricate details while retaining key forms, is something we all instinctively experience when squinting at distant objects. While Rowntree’s abstraction differs from this simplified approximation, it serves as a reminder that abstraction is a deliberate artistic choice that distills a scene down to its essential elements, allowing the artist to emphasize specific aspects of their vision.
In Long Barn, the sinuous horizontal lines of the land, reduced to broad swaths of unmodulated color, establish a peaceful mood, drawing the viewer into the landscape’s calm. These forms are juxtaposed with the sharper, darker outlines of fir trees and broken black lines that suggest tree trunks and branches, grounding the viewer in the middle ground. Above, the sky introduces movement and complexity, with windswept clouds gathering in the upper left and breaking just above the barn and tree area at the center right. This contrast of elements; calm, undulating land against the dramatic energy of the sky, creates a harmonious balance that avoids visual crowding, preserving the tranquil atmosphere of the pastoral setting.
Rowntree’s color palette expertly employs secondary and tertiary hues. Green, purple, and orange are complemented by bluish green, yellowish green, and violet blue. The only primary color in the composition, red, appears in the long barn at the center of the piece, creating a striking contrast with the dominant green of the surrounding landscape. This vibrant contrast makes Long Barn a perfect fit for Summa Health’s Green Neighborhood, reinforcing the peaceful yet dynamic qualities of the natural world.
About the Artist
Caroline Rowntree, a graphic designer with a background in painting from the Central St. Martins School of Art in London, has spent many years combining her artistic skills with digital technology. After teaching graphic design in the S.U.N.Y. system in New York, she now resides in Columbus, where she works full-time as a printmaker and creator of digital images.
Her work, which blends the precision of graphic design with the creativity of digital imagery, can be viewed on screens or, as in these pieces, printed on panels. For the new Summa tower, Rowntree’s four works were selected to enhance the patient room environment. Given the importance of hygiene in healthcare spaces, these digitally produced artworks were printed on Willow Glass, an ultra-thin, durable, and cleanable material that ensures the artwork remains vibrant and intact while maintaining a sterile environment.
These works are part of Summa Health’s commitment to incorporating meaningful art into its spaces, creating a calming and visually engaging environment for patients and visitors alike.
Where you can see more of this artist’s work
An original edition of a Rowntree print was selected for the 2019 Ohio Governor’s Awards for the Arts, where it was presented as a prize to each award recipient. To explore more of her work, visit the artist’s website for additional prints and projects.