Art & Artist | Sep. 2025
BENEFIT OF ART 2025: TOUR D’ARTISTES
By Contributor
Journey by Roslyne
The Benefit of Art 2025: Tour d’Artistes launches from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on September 14 with exclusive studio tours of Highland Park artist Caren Helene along with Deerfield artists Karen Ross and Roslyne Smith. The tours include both viewing and purchase opportunities. Afterwards guests will gather at Genesis Highland Park at 4:30 p.m. for a collaborative art installation, refreshments, and sumptuous bites supporting Art Impact Project’s 11th year of enhancing emotional wellness through guided art programming. The 2025 Vickie Marasco Impact Award honors Rose Kostan-Schwartz. artimpactproject.org/events
CAREN HELENE
Chicago-born artist and curator Caren Helene brings three decades of artistic exploration to themes of health, resilience, and mortality. With an MA from NYU/International Center of Photography, her psychologically layered work has gained significant market traction at prestigious fairs like The Hamptons Art Fair. The former Art Center Highland Park curator (2010-2024) currently collaborates on “A Whisper 2 A Scream,” examining art’s healing power through her personal experience as a BRCA gene carrier.
Artist Karen Ross creates luminous abstract paintings using ancient encaustic techniques, burning molten beeswax, resin, and pigments into wood substrates. The former psychotherapist and mother of five employs various methods including carving and image transfers to create highly textured, layered works. Recently exhibited at Art Center Highland Park and Evanston Art Center, her pieces are collected nationwide and featured in Sheridan Road.
South African-born artist Ros Smith, now based in Chicago, transitioned from digital design to expressive impasto oil painting using palette knives—a technique born from a 2001 wrist injury. Her intuitive, texture-rich abstracts emerge from pure emotion and play, influenced by international travels and masters like Modigliani and Monet. The lifelong educator exhibits locally at venues including Lake Forest Art Fair and recently began leading art retreats in France.
