Rolinda Stotts’ latest show features soft wintery scenes December 19 2025, 0 Comments
By Kimberly Nicoletti
Rolinda Stotts’ new work showcases both the subtle shades of winter in a more minimalist fashion, as well as the bold colors that shine through the season’s sunsets. She visits the south Breckenridge gallery January 2nd to 3rd.
She employs a masterfully blended monochromatic range of color that shimmers through the winter months — a more subtle, soft and smooth palette that doesn’t differ in range as much as the other three seasons. Yet, vibrant colors contrast those minimalistic shades when she captures the deep, rich colors that appear for just seconds through stunning winter sunsets.
“The moment of the sunset with the mountain snow (depicts) both ends of the spectrum — super minimalistic, with a small range of color, and then lots of color,” she says. “I think it’s going to be fun for collectors to walk in and see what resonates with them. Are they much more in that minimalism side of the color range, or are they wanting this broad band of color?”
Over the last several years, she’s been exploring the many shades of blue she can create on her glass palette.
“When you take a blue, in order to not make it shout at you, you do certain things to lean it more into a gray. And it’s not a flat, ugly gray but a beautiful, rich, organic, natural gray. You can go into a blue gray or a blue purple. But that range is softer and much more soothing and, therefore, much more minimalistic and contemporary,” she says.
From these hues, she creates abstract backgrounds, as opposed to straight-forward landscapes. Placing her signature liquid trees over that provides greater depth, which they otherwise wouldn’t convey when mountains and flowers compete for focus. Instead, viewers experience her beautiful, naked trees.
Time Standing Still by Rolinda Stotts
“You just notice the trees in a different way than you do when they’re covered with foliage. So winter is a beautiful time to highlight and showcase those beautiful white liquid trees,” she says.
When she does incorporate bold colors, she understands how to harmoniously blend them with the more minimalistic scenes.
“It’s actually making my mouth water as I talk about it because it’s such a fun experience to go from a really soft, warm yellow into the oranges and pinks and purples and blues, but to do it in a way that doesn’t look unnatural. It’s like a woman when she wears makeup. If it has this more natural feel to it, you see her, versus when it’s way out there with clumpy mascara and an awful lipstick color that doesn’t work. So my goal here is for you to see this incredible winter landscape — and not just see it, but feel it — (in a way) that resonates in the soul, with all of the colors that you can imagine hidden, in a soft, subtle, natural way, versus slapping you around.”
Beautiful Bliss by Rolinda Stotts
She uses the metaphor of cooking in a cast-iron skillet to describe how she achieves this:
“The flavors are being stretched and expanded and merged together, so you don’t just have this band of yellow and orange and pink and purple and blue. It’s actually this gradual merge that happens first on the glass palette and then is transferred over onto the Bella Rotta canvas,” she says, adding that the paintbrush blends the colors in ways that allow for gradation, as opposed to a striping effect.
As a funny aside, she didn’t always use an expensive paintbrush and professional glass palette. As an artist who grew up on a farm, she came to a fine arts career a bit later. In fact, she began with latex paint from the hardware store, using bucket lids as palettes.
“I was very proud of my bucket lids. I mean, I would travel with them — it was a sideshow. It was so awesome because it was different and unique, and I’m a rebel, and I come to this from a very exploratory mad-science place of art. I don’t come with a rule book,” she says.
But she ultimately realized that not using professional-grade artist equipment was holding her back. So she decided to turn toward the pros, and thus elevated her craft.
Tomorrow's Treaure by Rolinda Stotts
“You can only get so far with the tools you use. And trust me, I sold a lot of art with bucket palettes, and I love that, (but) elevating to very expensive paintbrushes (and a glass palette) changed everything. I can see the color that I’m mixing on this glass palette, where I couldn’t really see the color on the bucket lid palettes until I got it on the Bella Rotta canvas. Just that shift alone has made a huge difference on my journey as an artist, and I’m excited to see what’s next.”
Indeed, this coming year promises plenty, as she celebrates her 25th year of her “discovery as an artist.”
“It feels like 2026 essentially is going to be a really big epic landmark for me for 25 years of finding my true nature,” she says.
January 2nd to 3rd she demonstrates her technique by continuing a painting she began in the studio with a calming, minimalistic palette and composition.
“It’s all about energy. I’ve already put all of that energy into this direction, (so) that’s what will end up happening for the painting as it develops its own personality,” she says. “When we’re creating anything, at some point, that creation takes life … we’re adding energy to it, so it’s transformed into something new. It feels like an extension of me, but it’s not me. It’s itself.”
Within her perception of the creative process, she believes it continues to live as it goes out in the world and “interacts” with viewers and eventually goes home with someone “to continue to add to their story and their life,” she says.
Smooth and Steady by Rolinda Stotts
In this way, the creative process never becomes stagnant. Instead, it’s a co-creation, first between the artist and the painting, and then between the painting and viewers.
And winter provides the perfect opportunity to slow down and soak in clean, serene, calming scenes.
“The same feeling happens when you’re on top of that slope and you look across and everything is just so winter pristine,” she says. “That’s the feeling I’m trying to get in these.”