Robert Abele III

Landscape engages me in an interior dialogue about its own significance and its relation to the environment and myself. These thoughts generate my final image. I use simple materials oil, brushes, canvas and an antique easel keeps me connected to the past. My composition starts with loose sketches done in vine charcoal. I feel my way through the landscape paying close attention to its shapes and textures. Simplicity and refinement happen only after a detailed draft is executed. I seek the simplification of form in the service of a sophisticated arrangement and design.

When I studied at the School of Visual Arts in the early 1990's, I was influenced by the artists of the Ashcan school and their documentary approach to image making. I chose to abandon the human presence and the subject of everyday life in order to represent the stillness of a scene. The observer’s eye completes the narrative on a human scale.

My paintings invite the viewer to experience the landscape in a personal and expressive way.