Marrin Robinson

While my work is based in landscape, it is not a replication of a particular place but rather a compilation of memory and experience. I start by working directly on site in watercolor, pastel and ink on paper. Each media acts as an independent voice that combines with the others as different lines of music combine to create a harmony while maintaining their own distinct, individual identities. These works on paper inspire the larger more abstracted oil paintings created in the studio. The oil paintings with titles such as, “Promise Before the Ascent,” “Cave of the Ancients,” and “Memories of an Ancient Land,” combine my experiences with ancient artifacts in situ in Greece, Egypt and India with my current experience of the Southwest. As Arthur Wesley Dow writes, “The artist doesn’t teach us to see facts, he teaches us to feel harmonies.” I would hope that these harmonies resonate with the viewer and reveal layers of meaning that slowly appear. People who have bought my paintings have mentioned that over the years, more and more emerges for them from this experience of looking and living with one of my paintings.