Set in front of a conservation area with a wildlife-filled pond, Caitlin Rosolen’s Lehigh Acres home studio feels equal parts artistic playground and science lab. In one corner, an array of acrylic paints, tangled masses of fiber and solar printing plates lie at the ready. In another, a curio cabinet holds beetles, avian skulls, a coiling snake skeleton and other specimens—the subject matter behind much of her multidisciplinary oeuvre.
In a region where nature is often depicted at its most sunlit and alive, Caitlin’s work focuses on death, decay, decomposition and rebirth. It’s not a rejection of Southwest Florida’s lush beauty, but a reframing. “Loss is painful and heavy, but there is also a deep gratitude that can be found in the void,” Caitlin says. “When lightning strikes a forest and burns it to ashes, the plant life grows back stronger than it was before the storm.”
As a fine arts student at Florida Gulf Coast University, the artist developed an early attentiveness to what others might overlook. That instinct deepened during her graduate studies at Florida Atlantic University, where technical rigor sharpened her practice without diminishing her patient, observational approach. Today, as a printmaking and photography adjunct professor and art collections manager at FGCU, she occupies a space between artist and steward, equally invested in the making and understanding of art.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
caitlin rosolen leigh acres artist fgcu printmaking
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Photography by Christina Bankson
caitlin rosolen leigh acres artist fgcu sewing project
Multidisciplinary artist Caitlin Rosolen recently added textile work to her practice. “There’s something about those materials that feels so tangible, so human. I feel like I could be pulling these skeins of yarn out of my own veins,” she says.
Photography is often where her work begins. In a 2015 photo series—completed during her studies at FGCU—Caitlin captured a pair of partially decayed Florida grasshopper sparrows, cradled as mirror images, in sharp relief against a white background. Another image depicts a butterfly in flight. Its wings, shed of their colorful scales, are nearly translucent and utterly fragile—an apparent treatise on ephemerality.
She collects such specimens by happenstance, either on nature walks or from friends. “I have a tendency to look down at the ground, where animals fall,” Caitlin says. “If you stand perfectly still, all of this activity starts to come out of the woodwork: a butterfly in its chrysalis, an anole lizard catching something to eat, a specimen decomposing.” Armed with medical-grade gloves and biohazard bags, she’ll relocate these found specimens—first to be photographed in her studio, then to a designated space in her backyard. There, the artist places them beneath a wide-knit wire cage to deter scavengers like raccoons or coyotes, while allowing insects free rein to carry out nature’s processes. She continues to photograph them repeatedly as they change over time, capturing details that would otherwise disappear.
Caitlin Rosolen’s Me Too On You (2021), courtesy Caitlin Rosolen
caitlin rosolen leigh acres artist fgcu me on you painting
From these documentarian-like foundations, her work expands into abstraction on vellum paper. She’ll pluck three images from months of progress shots, identify textures and shapes that strike her, then reinterpret them through paint and mixed media. For Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, she selected shots from her previous undergraduate work and reinterpreted the curvature of the spine and the way insects swarmed and gathered as abstracted forms in pastel, ink, charcoal and acrylic paint. “I don’t add anything to balance the composition,” she says. “I’m not choosing to add a couple of ants in the lower corner just because there’s so many in the top right corner.” She aims to capture nature’s design rather than a traditional aesthetic sense of balance. The results are striking in their uneasiness. “That series is about life after death, but not in the way people might think,” she says. “It’s the flurry of life that is now breaking down the specimen.”
Other abstract works interpret more personal memories, capturing the movement behind a touch or strain in a moment of significance from the artist’s life. Works like Breaking Point blend multiple mediums to achieve the “memory of movement,” as Caitlin describes it. Strokes of paint and black pastel reveal themselves in layers. Light and dark continuously exchange roles, encouraging viewers to spend time with the work rather than consume it quickly.
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Courtesy Caitlin Rosolen
caitlin rosolen leigh acres artist fgcu butterfly scan
Caitlin’s artwork often centers on animal and insect specimens found on walks or gifted from friends. She photographs them repeatedly as they decompose, capturing details like the way butterfly wings lose their scales and become transparent.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
caitlin rosolen leigh acres artist fgcu knitting project
She’s keenly aware that her subject matter can come across as morbid, and she’s not immune to the emotions most often associated with the concepts she explores. “That one really tore me up,” she says of one find—a baby opossum left orphaned after a hit-and-run car crash killed its mother. Caitlin quickly whisked the joey away to the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel Island in hopes of saving it from a similar fate. Unfortunately, help came too late.
In recent years, she’s been drawn to fiber for its almost organic, tactile qualities and for its ability to soften difficult subject matter by creating an immediate physical connection with viewers. “During my master’s program, I started incorporating a lot of yarn, fiber and beads into my multimedia pieces,” she says. “There’s something about those materials that feels so tangible, so human. I feel like I could literally be pulling these skeins of yarn out of my own veins.”
Photography by Christina Bankson