JOHNNY ROBERTSON
Artist Statement
Growing up on the plains of west Texas, I understood the
notion of wide, open spaces. The tabletop landscape was dotted by the
repeating shapes of telephone poles and petroleum tanks as they receded
into the distance. It was the small things that gave the Llano its
bigness. When I escaped and began to see more of the world, I was
always attracted to the subtleties of places and situations: shapes of
shadows, the color of sunlight, temperatures, etc. I noticed, as I
began to paint, that memories of these things evolved; the details
altered, thoughts and emotions edited. Have you ever looked at an old
photo and realized you had remembered things completely different? My
art has much to do with this sense of fleeting atmospheres. To me, the
paintings are distilled records of ever-changing spatial events in my
past and necessarily in my future.
