Roberta Crown

Artist's Statement

My paintings are landscapes of the mind coming from somewhere in the back of my head. It is a world of color and space vary according to events that have occurred around me recently or in the past. Strange landscapes that are that filled with symbols that not know even to me. The symbols became clear to me many years after I have painted them.

There are marks that are a secret language somewhere in my subconscious that stand for Biblical references. color plays a very important part in this world.

I've been drawing and painting practically all my life and using various spaces to express my thoughts and images. Lately I found a new motivation by looking out of the windows of my studio. I found a space defined by automobiles. When I was a little girl the car meant a lot to me and my family. We suddenly had the freedom to go anywhere, to faraway museums, places and to see all types of terrain. When I ride in cars, I remember my father again. As we drove along, he told us his wonderful stories and explained the places we were passing along the route. He is no longer with us and every time I see new cars, the shapes and colors are something I would like to share with the views along with my paints. America is an automobile culture. It gives people space and power that they wouldn't ordinarily possess.

My main aim and concern in painting is color and form. In previous years I was moved to paint semi-abstract landscapes connected to various seas on our vast planet. In 1993 I visited Albuquerque, New Mexico, I learned that the area was once a giant inland salt lake connected to the ocean millions of year ago and inhabited by whales and other prehistoric creatures. This encounter started my work on a series about whales and their offspring which I painted in an abstract manner of form and color. I visited aquariums all over the country and collected the images of known species. These materials became the motion, color and shapes of a powerful, enormous, mysterious world of my own invention hidden from most of us on land.

Continuing my research I traveled to Maui in the Hawaiian Islands where I visited the whaling village and the pacific whale foundation. then I formulated and developed ideas and sketches for the paintings presently being exhibited at the Queens College Center.

Roberta Crown © 2010

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