John Roberts went west in a hippie school bus when he was a boy, traveled west in his mind for a series of paintings, and is driving west from Tennessee to deliver the paintings to Andrea Schwartz Gallery in San Francisco. Westward Through My Mind opens May 14 with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and reamains on view at the gallery through June 19.
Heading West, oil and acrylic on panel, 36 x 36"
“I’ve always felt a strong pull to go west,” Roberts explains. “For decades it’s been my dream to load up my kids in our old 1987 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon and drive to the Grand Canyon. We would fill a big cooler with cans of ice-cold soda and sandwich supplies. We’d eat breakfast at roadside cafes and camp where the threat of bears is real. John Denver in his wire spectacles and puffy vest coat would be our companion on the radio.
“This exhibition makes it possible for others to experience this geographical section of my mind in westward moving order," he continues. "Each painting was a complete image in my head before I ever started working on it. My youngest son, Moses, is the star of the show. He is 9 years old, always around when I need a reference photo, and we are a lot alike.”
Arkansas Float, oil and acrylic on panel, 24 x 48"
Roberts and his family live on a farm that has been in his family since the early 19th century, rich with history and family memorabilia including black and white photographs that become colorful paintings like enlarged Polaroid prints or Kodachrome slides. “I’ll paint from the photograph,” he says, “and make up the rest.” There is a loving admiration in the paintings for the relatives who came before him and, in the case of Westward Through My Mind, his young son, Moses. In Bad Alternator, Eastern Colorado, Moses sits questioningly in the idled Oldsmobile with the temporarily unreachable mountains far ahead on the seemingly endless road.
After receiving his MFA in drawing and painting from the University of Arkansas in 2000, Roberts began working as a tombstone etcher, a job he still has—in the morning. He paints in the afternoon.
Bad Alternator, Eastern Colorado, oil and acrylic on wood panel, 36 x 48"
“When I turned 45,” he relates, “I realized I had something to say, stories to tell. It was time. I think about everyone’s life stories, about who I am and what I know.” As a composer making recordings as “Skyway 7,” a former missionary who raises money for children in India who have been rescued from forced labor, a husband and father of eight living within the history of either generations of his family, he has a lot to tell.
Southern California Café Stop, oil and acrylic on panel, 24 x 48"
Meanwhile, he says, “I’m loading up my van with a cooler full of drinks and sandwiches, and my 16-year-old son, Daniel. We will take turns driving on our way from Tennessee to California to deliver the paintings in this show. We plan to stay in old motels, listen to podcasts about mountain men, and stop for every bear and each magnificent new vista.” —
Andrea Schwartz Gallery 545 4th Street San Francisco, CA 94107 • (415) 495-2090 www.asgallery.com
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