Peggy Roalf
Photo copyright © Marco Palli · Source: New York Artists Circle
- Medium
- Watercolor, Sumi Ink
- Based in
- Manhattan
Peggy Roalf is an artist and writer living in Manhattan. Her work in painting and printmaking is in several private collections and has recently been seen in exhibitions at Art Students League [2025, 2024], Center for B… Full biography
Biography
Peggy Roalf is an artist and writer living in Manhattan. Her work in painting and printmaking is in several private collections and has recently been seen in exhibitions at Art Students League [2025, 2024], Center for Book Arts [2024[, New York Artists Circle [2025, 2023, 2021] and Women Celebrate Women [2022]. She has taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate level at Fordham University, The Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and the International Center of Photography,
In 2022 she was funded by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to teach “Tell Me Your Story”, portraits in pastel, at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House [LHNH], and “Self-Discovery through Self-Portraits” in various mediums at El Barrio’s Artspace PS109. She taught “Interaction of Watercolor” and “Present Yourself” on Zoom for Sculptors Alliance, Inc. during the Pandemic Lockdown, and live at LHNH in 2023. Peggy is on the Board of Sculptors Alliance, Inc., serving as Secretary. She is editor and chief and writer for DART: Design Arts Daily, ai-ap.com’s online art journal, and consults with working artists on professional practice.
Artist statement
Artmaking is my way of understanding the world I inhabit—a way of existing in a city whose energy alternately inspires and overwhelms me. Paradox and duality are central to my nature and art-making. Through painting I investigate the primal nature of the place; its unstable elements reveal themselves through these visual studies, with the landscape a primary concern.
Frequent escapes to an island in the East River are a way of connecting with a sense of what matters most in life. Here the elements—Earth, Air, Water—inform my watercolor paintings, which are documents of real moments lived.
Painting outdoors in a storm during hurricane season marked the beginning of the series, Elements. Rain, thunder, and wind combined to express Nature’s unpredictability that inflects these landscapes, later reimagined in the studio using acrylics. I work in other mediums as well, including printmaking [monotype], pastel, collage, graphite, and charcoal—and am active in the art of the book. I believe that the marks we leave in the world tell another story, beyond speech, of who we are and how we offer our inner selves to others.
