Winston Wachter Fine Art, New York is excited to announce Public Lands, its third solo exhibition by painter Tracy Rocca. The ethereal, abstract works are based on landscapes, and are composed of blended moments around a central point of misty white light. Through these dreamy, large-scale paintings, Rocca draws the viewer in to a meditative focus on nature.

Rocca bases her most recent work on family visits to National Parks with her husband and children. Each painting is based on photographic source images, from which Rocca pulls color themes and basic composition. She reflects on a specific time and place over a period of several months in her studio in New Mexico, bathed in natural sunlight. Employing slow-drying natural pigments and materials, Rocca constructs her paintings through many thin glazes of color. These layers create a sense of depth, and an impressionistic, glowing light. Even as the works blur toward abstraction, they often maintain a clear horizon line, and convey meditative memories of nature.

Public Lands explores National Parks as the incredible, planned spaces that they are. Created to preserve and portray the beauty in nature, every hike at a National Park is designed to lead someplace incredible. They are wildly popular destinations, yet Rocca’s work strips away the human involvement. In these paintings, Rocca reflects not just on majestic places in nature, but on personal moments with family. She encourages mindfulness, and hopes that these works inspire preservation and care for these spaces for future generations. At its core, Public Lands is about presence, and invites viewers to reflect on their own quiet moments in beautiful places.

Tracy Rocca currently lives and works in Albuquerque, NM. Rocca received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington and her Post Baccalaureate from the California College of the Arts Extended Education. She has shown her work internationally and is represented in many private and public collections.