Bio
Rose Christian is a visual artist who works in multiple media that include printmaking, painting, and drawing. She stepped away from a 30-year career in biomedical education and research to pursue her art education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and graduated from Tufts University with an MFA in studio art in 2022. She has taught drawing and printmaking at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and works in her studio in Chelmsford, MA surrounded by woodlands, wetlands and meadows that provide the materials and inspiration for her artwork.
Artist Statement
As a child growing up in a small town, I was free to explore the neighboring thickets and fields until called home for dinner with my pockets full of wonders - a snakeskin, a toad, a jawbone. As a physician-scientist I explored human tissues with microscopes, x-rays, and sound waves to find those subtle shifts in shape, color, and spatiality that signify healing or disease. This practice of close observation has shaped my visual language as an artist. I use drawings, prints, paintings, and installations to map, explore, and connect with the more-than-human world around me. Animacy, kinship, and symbiosis are themes of my quietly detailed work. The lichen and flora that I encounter on walks are my subjects, collaborators, and teachers. Locally foraged plants contribute their pigments for work that celebrates the life forms growing overlooked in our cracked sidewalks, and not in a glamorized wilderness. I believe the act of careful looking can lead to actual caring; my work gives a reason to look more deeply.
Curriculum Vitae
Exhibitions
2025
- One Year Later, two artist exhibit, Zea Mays Printmaking, Florence, MA
- 86th Regional Exhibition of Art & Craft, juror Jameson Johnson, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA,
2024
- Making An Impression: The Monotype and Monoprint, juror Elizabeth Jabar, Cove St. Gallery, Portland, ME
- Concord Center for Visual Art, members exhibit, juror Candice S. Corby, Concord, MA
- Fresh Ink: Contemporary Explorations in Printmaking, juror Carolyn Muskat, Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2023
- Lasting Impressions: The Monotype and Monoprint, juror Rachel Vogel, Koskores Gallery at Thayer
Academy, Brockton, MA
- 24th Annual Roddy Competition, juried by Lauren Szumita, Concord Center for Visual Art, Concord, MA
- Hot Off the Press, New Hampshire Art Association juried print exhibit, Portsmouth, NH
- The Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition, Danforth Museum, Framingham MA
- Emergence, juried exhibit, Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA
- Art of the Unique Print, MGNE members exhibit, Newbury Court Gallery, Concord, MA
2022
- You’re on Mute, Graduate thesis exhibit, Aidekman Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA
- Ecology, MGNE members exhibit, Silver Center Gallery, Plymouth State Univ., Plymouth, NH
- Unseen Biology, two-person invited exhibit, juror Olin College, Needham, MA
- School of the Museum of Fine Arts, juried exhibit, Anderson Gallery, Boston, MA
2021
- Bog Flags of the Five Kingdoms, solo installation, Cranberry Bog Reservation, Chelmsford, MA
2020
- Lichen Map Tree Wrap, solo installation, Cranberry Bog Reservation, Chelmsford, MA
- Syntax Variations, Mission Hill Gallery, School of the Museum of Fine arts, Boston, MA
- School of the Museum of Fine Arts, juried exhibit, Anderson Gallery, Boston, MA
Arts Organization memberships
The Boston Printmakers
Monotype Guild of New England (MGNE)
Zea Mays Printmaking
Work experience
2022-2023 Studio art instructor, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2021 Graduate teaching assistant, School of the Museum of Fine Arts @Tufts, Boston, MA
2018-2019 Clinical Development leader, Bill Gates Medical Research Institute, Cambridge, MA
2011-2018 Executive director, Translational Research, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, MA
2008-2011 Associate professor, UVM College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
2005-2008 Assistant professor, UVM College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
2003-2005 Assistant professor, UW-Madison College of Medicine, Madison, WI
1998-2003 Clinical Instructor, Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Rochester, MN
Education
2022 Master of Fine Arts, School of the Museum of Fine Arts @Tufts, Boston, MA
2003 Endocrinology Fellowship, Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Rochester, MN
1988 Internal medicine residency, Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME
1985 MD, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY
1980 BS, Marlboro College, Marlboro, VT