2020-06-01_The_Artists_Magazine

(Joyce) #1
ArtistsNetwork.com 55

FOR MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST, VISIT
CAROLYNROBLES.COM.

OPPOSITE
Zeus (oil on canvas,
36x24) is primarily
about climate change,
“but it also has to do
with the internal and
external connection,”
says Robles. “The
storm he’s conjuring
in his mind is actually
coming to fruition in
his reality and fi lling
the space with water.
There are many
symbols here that
I hope carry certain
meanings, but I also
like that interpretations
will vary from person
to person.”


Adventures(pencilandgoldleafonpaper,
14x11) began as a straightforward portrait of
a student’s daughter. “When I teach private
lessons,” Robles says, “I draw and paint the
same subject as my student, right by his or
her side, so we can encounter challenges and
questions together and I can show diff erent
techniques for resolving problems.” As the artist
drew this girl, the idea of the coyote and hawk
emerged, “representing strength and breaking
away from the antiquated and limiting con-
vention that girls are simply nice and sweet.”
She liked having the coyote disappear into the
hawk’s wing: “Perhaps a side of us that’s almost
too grounded, too practical, has to sometimes
give way to one full of adventure and hope,
soaring in dreams,” the artist says.

of the time, especially for larger works, I’ll move straight
into color when painting,” Robles says, “or I’ll do a grisaille,
especially for some of the figures for which I want to be
more precise.” Although she loves pastels—which enable
her to create large works quickly and which she’s able to
manipulate well enough to resemble oils—Robles wants to
return to doing more oil painting.
Art history classes tempted her to try gold leaf recently,
which she applied to the drawing Adventures (below) to
make a crescent moon featuring a pattern symbolic of the
sky and stars. “I remember falling in love with illuminated
manuscripts,” says Robles. “I still have in my mind that,
someday, I’m going to do something like that.”

THE NEXT CHAPTER
Technology is the theme Robles wants to explore in her
future work. “We’re almost seeing ourselves as technology,
merging with it in a way that’s limiting our perceptions and
imagination,” she says. “The paintings I have in mind for my

next series are moving in a direction
that’s a little more surreal. Mother-
boards appear in my mind when I start
thinking of ideas for them.”
Robles has wrestled with how much
written explanation should accom-
pany her work when she exhibits it
because, although she doesn’t obsess
over whether viewers will understand
her point, she doesn’t want to be com-
pletely misinterpreted. “I know what
it means to me, and I don’t mind if
viewers get something totally dif-
ferent from it,” she says, noting that
sometimes the viewers offer interpre-
tations that are even more interesting
than what she’d intended. “What
I ultimately want them to realize is
something deeper about who they
really are, how similar we all are and
howconnectedeverythingis.”

Stefanie Laufersweiler is a freelance
writer and editor living in Cincinnati.

More Online!
See Robles’ painting process in stages
at artistsnetwork.com/go/robles-demo.
Free download pdf