The SUNBELT: Interceptive Relation
Etching, Screenprint and Monotype, 2 ft x 30 in, 2025
The work runs across the wall like a long strip of Southern heat. Cut and woven paper forms a broken line of houses, roads, fences, pale blue shadows, and warm orange light. The middle narrows like a passage, pulling the two sides together before the image opens back out into neighborhood and church. Rose Kimbrough made this work from her interest in STEM and Art, especially how nature v. nurture may affect the way people respond to images. Here, colors, buildings, patterns, and fragments of place become visual signals. They come from Rose’s own subconscious experiences, but they are also offered to the viewer as something to feel through. The stretched form seems to carry the slow pressure of heat in July, while the movement from abstract pattern to Southern landscape points to the duality of the South, familiar, beautiful, heavy, and uneasy at the same time.
The idea for the project was born from my interest in building on the connection between STEM and Art. I had the idea to connect our biology, or nature v. nurture, to visual signals. I worked with a Biology lab at the University of Alabama and researched brain activity when viewing certain colors, images, and compositions. In these research papers, it was largely claimed that how we view these visual signals is informed by subconscious information from our nurturing as children. In all these research labs, results showed that when viewing work that connects to one's own subconscious experiences, dopamine receptors of the brain would light up, regardless of whether the artwork was representational or abstract. Nurture can shape how we react, feel, walk, or interact with life. It's something that gives us insight into one another. When making this work, I was keeping in mind the research I conducted. I wanted to make a piece that felt like a complete malcimation of my own experience, filled with visual signals that I found most rewarding when viewing. I wanted to make something that would trigger my own dopamine receptors and then see if those visual signals would work on others as well. When deciding the shape of the piece, I wanted it to mimic the sound of the heat in July, a long droning sound that goes in and out in long intervals. Then I took some more upclose abstract elements, and made them almost overbearing and unsettling. Having that image start out the piece, and then look over the neighborhood and church, puts in perspective the duality of the South. For me, a piece is successful when I can completely actualize the image I have in my head. It isn't often, or at all, that I feel like I am able ot make a successful piece, because I always desire more. I would consider this piece successful
From the artist >
< From Rexhibit
STEM and Art   ✚
STEM and Art
Rose Kimbrough made this work from her interest in STEM and Art, especially how nature v. nurture may affect the way people respond to images.
Nature v. nurture   ✚
Nature v. nurture
Rose Kimbrough made this work from her interest in STEM and Art, especially how nature v. nurture may affect the way people respond to images.
Visual signals   ✚
Visual signals
Colors, buildings, patterns, and fragments of place become visual signals.
Subconscious experiences   ✚
Subconscious experiences
They come from Rose’s own subconscious experiences, but they are also offered to the viewer as something to feel through.
Heat in July   ✚
Heat in July
The stretched form seems to carry the slow pressure of heat in July.
Duality of the South  ✚
Duality of the South
The movement from abstract pattern to Southern landscape points to the duality of the South, familiar, beautiful, heavy, and uneasy at the same time.

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The SUNBELT: Interceptive Relation
Etching, Screenprint and Monotype, 2 ft x 30 in, 2025
From Rexhibit
The work runs across the wall like a long strip of Southern heat. Cut and woven paper forms a broken line of houses, roads, fences, pale blue shadows, and warm orange light. The middle narrows like a passage, pulling the two sides together before the image opens back out into neighborhood and church. Rose Kimbrough made this work from her interest in STEM and Art, especially how nature v. nurture may affect the way people respond to images. Here, colors, buildings, patterns, and fragments of place become visual signals. They come from Rose’s own subconscious experiences, but they are also offered to the viewer as something to feel through. The stretched form seems to carry the slow pressure of heat in July, while the movement from abstract pattern to Southern landscape points to the duality of the South, familiar, beautiful, heavy, and uneasy at the same time.
From the Artist
The idea for the project was born from my interest in building on the connection between STEM and Art. I had the idea to connect our biology, or nature v. nurture, to visual signals. I worked with a Biology lab at the University of Alabama and researched brain activity when viewing certain colors, images, and compositions. In these research papers, it was largely claimed that how we view these visual signals is informed by subconscious information from our nurturing as children. In all these research labs, results showed that when viewing work that connects to one's own subconscious experiences, dopamine receptors of the brain would light up, regardless of whether the artwork was representational or abstract. Nurture can shape how we react, feel, walk, or interact with life. It's something that gives us insight into one another. When making this work, I was keeping in mind the research I conducted. I wanted to make a piece that felt like a complete malcimation of my own experience, filled with visual signals that I found most rewarding when viewing. I wanted to make something that would trigger my own dopamine receptors and then see if those visual signals would work on others as well. When deciding the shape of the piece, I wanted it to mimic the sound of the heat in July, a long droning sound that goes in and out in long intervals. Then I took some more upclose abstract elements, and made them almost overbearing and unsettling. Having that image start out the piece, and then look over the neighborhood and church, puts in perspective the duality of the South. For me, a piece is successful when I can completely actualize the image I have in my head. It isn't often, or at all, that I feel like I am able ot make a successful piece, because I always desire more. I would consider this piece successful.
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