“Roots”

Paintings by Todd Kosharek

Show Dates:

August 14th – September 28th 2025

Artist Reception:

Saturday, August 16th, 4 - 6 pm

Artist talk and dance performance choreographed by Kate Kosharek

Artist Demonstration and Talk: Symbolism in Landscape

Sunday August 24th, 1 - 3 pm

Coffee Talk: Vermont Art History

Saturday September 13th, 10 am - 12 pm

Closing Reception:

Friday September 26th, 5 - 7 pm

Artist talk and dance performance choreographed by Kate Kosharek

ARTIST BIO

Through paint, Todd Kosharek contemplates life, exploring fundamental dynamics of memory, time, place and existential philosophy.   Through landscape painting and his ongoing origami crane series, he considers the ancient Japanese prayer tradition of folding 1,000 cranes.   His meticulous treatment of this ritual raises important questions for the viewer: What is life?  What is peace?  What is my role in all of this?  He embraces different philosophical tenants by pursuing distinct projects - peace, perception, history - all through his love for symbolism. 

Raised in rural Wisconsin, he started painting at age 13.   After receiving a degree in Art History from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, he moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where he lived, painted and exhibited in numerous group and solo shows for twenty years.   Kosharek approaches his work by choosing a theme with deeper symbolic meaning and then seeks subject matter that further expands his understanding or questioning of that theme.   This approach does not differ whether he is painting landscape or his origami crane paintings.   After moving to Vermont with his and two sons, Kosharek found the change in atmosphere, rich color, and rich historical heritage to bring forth an even greater level of love for symbolic language through painting.   His work lives in major private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe.   

ARTIST STATEMENT

“What I love in painting, both as an artist and as a viewer, is the feeling I get from seeing something that was meticulously created by pigment and brush. I want to see time – time taken by the painter to think, feel and create – but also the element of time, as if the painting is not frozen as an image but will grow and change with me as a person as I grow and change.” 

I moved to Vermont two years ago after twenty years in the mountains of Wyoming.   The beauty of this state is evident in the landscape, but the aspect I was not prepared for that has opened my heart is the deep roots the community has with the land.   People are kind here as a way of life.   Things are soft - the light on the trees through the humidity, the wave from a neighbor, the time the passerby will give to talk about birds.  It is not soft as in weak, it is soft as if the whole place is rooted in gratitude.  As if vulnerability to being alive is true strength.   I have been so moved by it and found it most evident in one specific farm in Westford.   The current owners let me wander around night and day, painting, taking in the fact the previous owner passed on at age 100 on the same land he was born on to.   That idea - 100 years largely spent in one place -  really knowing somewhere - is what I focused on for this show.   Where do I plant my gratitude to root?