Leah Rosenberg uses colors to explore and celebrate SLO in a new mural at SLOMA 

For artist Leah Rosenberg, picking the hues for her latest work is akin to a jungle expedition where, as an intrepid explorer, she searches for the map that will guide her to greater treasures.

It's part of her endless quest to find meaning in the colors of everyday life, using them to craft a story that is both relevant to her and those who view her art, often in ways that are completely different from each other.

"Color is a universal language; it gives anyone from anywhere access to use art to enhance their lives," she said. "They connect us to places both familiar and unfamiliar, and for an artist like myself, allow me to pay homage to the local area without relying solely on my intuition."

The San Francisco-based artist was recruited by San Luis Obispo Museum of Art Chief Curator Emma Saperstein to paint the museum's yearly mural project due to Rosenberg's color-focused art in the Bay Area. In 2022, artist Erin LeAnn Mitchell's Calafia was Here mural graced the outside of the museum.

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• Photo Courtesy Of SLOMA
• IN PROGRESS In the early stages of painting, artist Leah Rosenberg focuses on picking the right colors for the year-long story her mural, SLO(W) Rainbow, will tell.

"It felt like a good time for something lighthearted, and Leah's work is really emblematic of that," Saperstein said. "From the moment we began looking for someone to do the mural, people from across our networking circles suggested Leah, so it just made sense to go with someone who confidently captured that nature we were looking for."

Rosenberg is scheduled to finish her mural, SLO(W) Rainbow, on Feb. 25. Encompassing the museum's outside walls, each side is dedicated to a different abstract rendition of iconic SLO locations, including the Nine Sisters peaks and local flora found in SLO Creek.

The mural is also Rosenberg's attempt to evolve her style by using a less vibrant palette, consisting of shades like gray, to mitigate the impact that changing light will have on the mural's colors. Her goal is to make SLO(W) Rainbow an ever-evolving piece that evokes different feelings based on the time of day and time of year, and it's meant to be experienced as a full walk-around.

"I don't want the colors to be too poppy, to a point where they don't adjust well with changing light, so I wanted to utilize these grayer colors," she said. "They really lighten and darken as the day changes around them."

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• Photo Courtesy Of Heraldo Creative Studio
• NEW YEAR, NEW MURAL Designed by artist Erin LeAnn Mitchell, Calafia was Here covered SLOMA's exterior walls in 2022.

Over the last five years, Rosenberg has traveled across America showcasing her work through residencies in places such as Charlotte, South Carolina, and Omaha, Nebraska, picking up inspiration for future work along the way while color remained her constant guide.

"Most of these art projects, whether they be residencies or galleries, are based on a short time frame so it's all about going somewhere, establishing a routine, and connecting with the community," she said. "Even if I know nothing about the area I find myself in, I can use colors to map where I am and where I want to be going."

This form of color mapping has allowed the normally reserved Rosenberg to open new avenues of expression while also creating genuine connections with the communities she works in, even as she finds herself questioning the reliance she has had on the method in recent years.

"When I am out in an unfamiliar place like SLO and I ask someone from here, 'What color do you associate with this place?' it gives me a way to open a conversation with them I normally wouldn't have," she said."There is definitely a fear that I'm over-relying on it at times, but it really has allowed me to open up as I tend to be a little shy."

Rosenberg sees SLO(W) Rainbow as her opportunity to inspire viewers to appreciate the importance of color in their everyday lives.

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• Photo Courtesy Of Leah Rosenberg
• VIBRANT Using her color-centric art to showcase the impact of recycling, Leah Rosenberg's piece, What Goes Around (featured here at the Recology in San Francisco in 2019), uses pieces of her older work to tell its story.

"Because it's up for the whole year, I wanted to capture the colors that, while I might not be able to see in the time I'm visiting, would still inspire based on the things in SLO where people find their peace," she said. "Colors of places, like where people go hiking and see the sunset, or visiting Serenity Swing or the lemon grove—those places are places for everybody."

From the apricot-colored sunset skies casting shadows over the Nine Sisters to the green grass polka-dotted with pink flowers that line the creekside, she hopes that her mural will inspire and remind visitors and locals of the peace they find in the simple colors found around them.

"In the same way a writer uses a pen and paper to craft a legend, I'm using colors and this painting surface to craft my own story," she said. "Except this story has no beginning or end, it's a story of seasons and color—a gradual and ever-present rainbow." Δ

Freelancer Adrian Vincent Rosas is appreciating the colors of San Luis Obispo in a new light. Reach at [email protected].