MARY ROBERSON
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September 24 – October 6, 2018 Jackson Hole Artist Reception | September 27 | 5:30–7:30pm
MARY ROBERSON Look Deep into Nature
Jackson Hole | Scottsdale | AltamiraArt.com
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Just Pards Oil on panel | 36 x 48 inches Enquire
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Look Deep into Nature “Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better,” – Albert Einstein Mary Roberson abides by Einstein’s advice. She looks deeply at nature—the world that awaits just beyond her door in Hailey, Idaho—and then channels what she learns into layers of paint. Thus considering herself a conduit, she lets her subjects find her. “Wildlife chooses me, not the other way around,” she says. A morning spent watching a tanager frolic in her front yard becomes a sunny appearance in a larger composition.
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She doesn’t believe in plans or premeditation, ergo the tanager cameo. Spontaneity prevails, bucking all expectations. Ever impatient, she makes what she sees, but just as she refuses to conform, so too do her paintings. Some compositions force her to get out of her own way, like a pair of sandhill cranes with whom she struggled for weeks. “I wasn’t making it OK,” she says, “until finally I just let it be.” The result writhes with pitch, shadow and light resolved in mystery. “I don’t believe that we control our thoughts. I believe that things come to us as we need them.” In Jackson for the Art Fair, some visitors to her booth asked if she’d explored the first national park. Not since she was a toddler. So she changed her plans and spent two weeks in the caldera, phoning home periodically to extend her stay. “I just couldn’t leave,” she says. “I do that. I get into my own little world.” Total immersion remains her modus operandi. Most recently, she’s been moved by ravens, wise and wordy creatures she
respects as foils for her long stretches of silence. Whether in counterpoint or composition, her emotions emanate from her paintings—too much so at times for some people. Raw, close and real: such proximity to personality is what inspires Roberson. As encountered in humans as well: A JH couple, Altamira collectors turned friends, commissioned her to create a large painting for their entryway. Giving her full license, they wondered if she might consider incorporating maps into her paintings. Intrigued, she spent months researching cartography, delving deep into the New York Public Library and the David Rumsey Map Collection. Finally, she homed in on 18th century maps of North America and the concept of paintings creatures atop the contours of their natural habitats. She likes the age inherent in the maps—the lines of experience, the tonality of time, the tension between territory and terrain. From those inflection points, she paints. “I’m overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings and inspiration,” she says. “I’m not the author of it, I just go do it.”
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Wanderer Oil on panel | 12 x 9 inches Enquire
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Bette with Some Birch Twigs Oil on aluminum | 10 x 10 inches Enquire
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Barn Owl Mixed media on wood | 12 x 12 inches Enquire
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Fertile Kenya Oil on panel | 12 x 9 inches Enquire
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Countryside Oil on linen | 20 x 20 inches Enquire
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North of Yellowstone Oil on wood | 16 x 16 inches Enquire
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With Calves Oil on canvas | 36 x 40 inches Enquire
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Kenya Goat Herders Oil on panel | 12 x 12 inches Enquire
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Good Things I am Bringing Oil on aluminum | 8 x 10 inches Enquire
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North American Deer Family Mixed media | 48 x 96 inches Enquire
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The Wild Within Oil on canvas | 60 x 60 inches Enquire
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Life’s Dance Oil on aluminum | 20 x 24 inches Enquire
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A Girl Oil on wood | 12 x 12 inches Enquire
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Trumpeter Swan Near Shore Oil and encaustic on wood | 12 x 12 inches Enquire
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Foothills Oil on panel | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Preening Swan Oil on panel | 16 x 16 inches Enquire
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Talon’s Constant Worrying Made Punkin’ Nuts Oil on aluminum | 20 x 24 inches Enquire
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The Spirit of Nature Mixed media | 72 x 96 inches Diptych Enquire
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Go Ahead Without Me Oil on canvas | 36 x 36 inches Enquire
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172 Center Street | Jackson, Wyoming 83001 AltamiraArt.com | 307-739-4700
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