Introducing Roseprimevere
The Art of KWÈ
The artist behind the inaugural Healing Arts Gallery exhibit describes her paintings as the "Art of Resilience."
Within a 10-month period, starting in December 2015, acrylic abstract artist Roseprimevere Jacques lost both her sister and her father to cancer. In fact, her father died on what would have been her sister’s birthday, Oct. 3, 2016. Toward the end of his life, he had assembled the brushes and other items he would need to start painting. But he never got a chance to pursue this new creative outlet.
Roseprimevere, who prefers to be known by her first name, was stricken with grief by the two deaths. Her sister had breast cancer and fought “like a warrior,” she said. Her father had pancreatic cancer and just a few months to live after he was diagnosed. But he taught her how to live with joy and with art — and artfully.
Somehow, she felt that by picking up her father’s brushes and seeing what she could do with paint, she might find a way to push through her sorrow to the hope, love and joy her sister and father expressed throughout their lives.
The process was a kind of rebirth for Roseprimevere. She enrolled in a Master of Social Work program in 2017 and, at the same time, explored painting. Several years later, as she focused more on her art, she dropped her last name, focusing on the floral radiance of her given name — which translates from French as “Rose primrose.”
An exhibit of her exuberant paintings, called “Color Me Courageous: Glimpses of a Healing Journey Through Art Expressions,” through which she found self-healing and new life, is the inaugural exhibit at the new Healing Arts Gallery at Arts in Health Ocala Metro. The exhibit will be up through March 31, 2026, and can be seen by appointment. The gallery is at AIHOM office at 507 NE 8th Road, Ocala.
AIHOM mission
AIHOM is a nonprofit that takes visual art, music and other arts to the community, and especially to people facing mental and/or physical challenges. During its four years of existence, the organization has worked with 20 nonprofits, said Executive Director Patricia Tomlinson. This year, the organization is working with about 10 organizations, such as the Arc of Marion County and the Eighth Avenue Adult Activity Center.
Through AIHOM, 12 artist practitioners share their art with those attending programs at the nonprofit sites. Arts in Health also collects data to better understand how the arts affect the body and mind.
Lisa Irwin founded the nonprofit, but it was Tomlinson, the former curator of exhibitions at the Appleton Museum of Art, who advocated to the board that Arts in Health Ocala Metro have its own healing arts gallery.
The gallery will “have inspiring artwork that defines our mission and will help regional artists to display their healing work. It’s a win-win,” Tomlinson said.
AIHOM’s mission is to support mental and physical health through the arts. Those artists whose work “was created or inspired” by that mission will be chosen to exhibit at the gallery, Tomlinson said.
She said she really understood how art can change lives after she attended a symposium in Tampa and learned about a program for the military that integrates art and healing.
“I was instantly smitten,” she said, adding that she learned how art “can make profound mental and physical differences.”
AIHOM recently learned it will receive National Endowment for the Arts funding for an “Art for Veterans” program it will provide with the Ocala Vet Center.
Tomlinson said also has observed that when nonverbal children are involved in art, they will start communicating by pointing and other measures to make their desires known. Similarly, music can reach people who may seem otherwise unreachable, she said. The effect that art can have on people is “almost miraculous,” she said.
Roseprimevere’s work was chosen to launch the gallery because she is “very open and honest that she started painting to deal with her grief,” Tomlinson said. “She’s perfectly clear that her mental health benefited by painting.”
Artistic journey
Born in Gonaives, Haiti, Roseprimevere was able to stay in the U.S. after she married a U.S. citizen. It was while she was working at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, that she started taking her art more seriously.
The Hollywood hospital sponsored an art contest for staff and a friend encouraged Roseprimevere to enter. Eleven staff members submitted works and hers won third place. This was the first time she had ever done anything like this.
When asked if she thinks her father was speaking to her through her art and perhaps still does, she can’t talk at first.
Later, she tells how, when others would ask her, “How are you?” she would hide her feelings.
She said her painting has helped her learn to speak more in the moment and say something like, “Thank you for asking,” and then go on to explain that sometimes she’s doing well and sometimes, not as well.
When someone’s grieving a deep loss, the person doesn’t really ever get over it. The person’s sorrow can become “complicated grief,” and it can be overwhelming, Roseprimevere said.
After her sister, Guervara, and father, Richet, died, “No words were coming out,” she said.
Through painting, she was able to start expressing herself. And music helped, too.
She said songs, like Nico and Vinz’s “Am I Wrong?” helped “give me the courage to turn around.”
She said she would like it if her art had a similar effect on those who see it.
Her paintings are both abstract and vivid. The abstract patterns allow her “room for expression for myself and for people to see themselves,” she said.
As for the vibrant colors, she smiles and says, as if there’s no need for further explanation, “I’m Caribbean.”
In recent years, Roseprimevere was a traveling medical social worker at hospitals at Yale and Stanford universities and at Penn State’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. While she was at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, she exhibited her art at a popular Pan Asian restaurant and persuaded the restaurant to provide an art gallery wall, displaying the work of local artists.
After a while, Roseprimevere missed Florida and moved to Ocala, where she worked for AdventHealth.
Eventually, she decided she needed to devote herself full time to her art and art-related activities.
All along, she had encouraged others to express themselves through their art. Now it was her time to follow her own advice.
“I wrestled with it,” she said. “I decided I needed to practice what I preach. I decided … to see where it (art) would take me.”
She said two days after making her decision, she heard about the opportunity with Arts in Health Ocala Metro. She also is a resident artist at the Magnolia Art Xchange, or MAX.
The Art of KWÈ
She calls her paintings the “art of resilience.” In her native Creole, what she’s creating is “the art of kwè,” she said. She translates “kwè” as “belief.”
She has a packet of three laminated stickers that she sells. You could put them on your refrigerator or mirror or on the inside of your door as inspiration.
They say, “Color Me Strong,” “Color Me Brave” and “Color Me Courageous.”
Those working through grief are strong, brave and courageous, Roseprimevere said.
If she’s able to, she said she’d like to take her art around the United States, not to mention that she sees it having a “global” focus. No matter where her art takes her, she said she’d like to help people with their grief.
Yes, she’s an artist, but she said she’ll also always be a social worker.
She’s a member and past board member of the International Association for Social Work With Groups and does workshops combining art and grief support. She said she has discussed doing a support group for artists through MAX and would like to offer group and individual support work here.
At least for now, she said she’s viewing Ocala as her home base.
“It’s the first place I’ve decided to grow roots,” she said. “Ocala is stuck with me.”
Roseprimevere can be reached through her Facebook page at “Abstract Paintings by Art of Kwe,” on Instagram at artofkwe or Roseprimevere, and by email at info@artofkwe.com.
Arts in Health Ocala Metro can be reached through its website, aihocala.org. To make an appointment to view the Roseprimevere exhibit, email info@aihocala.org.