Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) Shows Johnny Robertson

Friday, 03 November 2006 22:19

Beaumont, TX — Power lines, rows of trees, a jetliner approaching the airport; these are all images anyone might glance at on a cross-country drive.  Drivers view these scenes all the time and would never think they were worthy subjects for large-scale landscape paintings.  For Dallas artist Johnny Robertson, however, they are, “the American landscape.” The Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) presents Robertson’s paintings in its Steinhagen Gallery 3 until December 31, 2006.

Robertson paints his images on 5’7” canvases with pastel-colored backgrounds.  In “Drag”, for example, Robertson paints streetlights and the tops of palm trees on a fuscia ground.  The effect, even though most of the canvas is blank, is one that fills the viewer’s mind with one word: “California”.

Robertson says people readily identify with his subject matter.  “When people tell me, ‘I’ve been there,’ they’re not talking about just physically being there.”

Robertson, who received his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1998 from the University of North Texas at Denton, has exhibited his landscapes throughout Texas. Galleries from Boston to Los Angeles show his work.

“I have resisted calling the works ‘American Landscapes’,” says Robertson, “but there is something very American about their creation in that they feature the idle time associated with [auto] travel.  Many images come from photographs taken while I’m driving…I’m also very attracted to what you can see from the front door of a motel.”

Robertson says he drives to California from Texas every year and never takes anything resembling a direct route.  “On the road,” he says, “there are so many opportunities to be overwhelmed that I just can’t resist it.”