Artist's Statement

Artists Statement June 2020.

My painting has become, over time and by intention, 100% non-verbal. I figured that if something can be said with words, then it should be said with words. I’m interested in what cannot be said with words. Hence, it’s hard to talk about it.

They are simply shapes (although sometimes they do wander into plant-like imagery). Shapes within a context, within fields of color and texture. Any given shape may change many times. Sometimes it is background, then shifts to foreground, then maybe to mid-ground. Frequently it will disappear entirely.

So, what guides me?

Well, I have my training and experience in the fundamentals of color and the creation of space and movement. That guides me. That is a language, a language that enables conversation.

The conversation is long and goes in many directions at once, turning back on itself. It revises, repeats, meanders, digresses, makes a point, disputes that point. You know that friend, that particular friend? You can sit down at 6 pm with some wine; next thing you know, it’s 2 am, you’re both pretty drunk, you have talked about everything. What you said played off on what she said, back and forth, in and out, and still there is more to say. Always more to say.

It’s that kind of conversation. One with no real beginning and no real end. Yet entirely engrossing.

Within a painting, each shape, every edge, every color and color variation, each texture, each way the light hits a particular pigment – everything affects everything else. A change anywhere affects everywhere. Balance and shift, balance and shift. Sometimes, even the TINIEST fleck of a change rearranges the entire gestalt of the whole painting. It’s freaky. It’s magic. It’s endlessly fascinating.

How does a painting come to an end?

A sign that something is alive is the fact that it moves. Movement = life. When all the shapes, edges, color, textures align into movement, a rather constant movement, within a space, then the painting is alive. There are no dead spots, places where the eye stops, trapped. The eye keeps moving.

Then the painting is at an end. But…. later, I look at it again, and suddenly there is more to say. Which eventually leads to another end, another movement-filled life.

Finally, finally, there is silence. There truly is nothing more to be said, and the painting is at THE END. 

Paintings by Dana Roberts • All Paintings • All Artists