Cindy Pease Roe

Cindy Pease Roe’s paintings reflect a deep kinship with the sea and illuminate her inherent connection to the vast salt waters that have inspired her since adolescence. She spent her Cape Cod childhood clamming, swimming, sailing, and painting in the attic on rainy days. Dividing her youthful sailing career between tropical waters and those of Nantucket, and quite literally practicing her painting abilities on the transoms of classic yachts, she has always been drawn to the aesthetic qualities of sailing vessels that ultimately serve as inspiration and drive her work. Having spent a large portion of her life on the water, when Cindy returned to study art at N.Y.U. she began to witness the melding of beauty and function in America’s quickly dwindling working waterfronts, and soon enough this paradigm started to have an increasingly strong presence in her work. Choosing to locate studios on both the East and West coasts in the heart of waterfront activity, establishing her first studio on the top floor of her brothers’ boat building shop, Cindy finds peace around craftsmen and nautical environments, she has had the chance to see what few others have, and aims to manifest that fascination in her work.
“I’ve always had a geometric perspective,” says Cindy. Speaking about her knowledge and ease while painting in the marine environment, “I wanted to push my art forward but boats in seascapes seemed too easy. It seemed almost like cheating, but I came to accept the idea that my whole life prepared me for this.” Her paintings communicate the frankness of boatyard workers and the stunning geometry of the vessels they build. Whether it is the fine artistry of a custom designed wooden yacht or the honorable steadfast functionality of a steel tug and barge, Cindy captures the integrity of its form.
Cindy Pease Roe currently spends her time painting on the North Fork of Long Island and never strays too far from the shoreline. She can be found working from a small boat on the waterfront, scouting subjects in various boatyards, and racing Beetle Cats on Georgica Pond. With her studio overlooking the marine railway in historic Hanff’s Boatyard in Greenport, Cindy Pease Roe is immersed in her subjects, and nothing demonstrates that better than her artwork.