Bob's Statement:

Making art is a spiritual experience for me.  It is an experience involving both acceptance and acquiescence. It becomes a matter of trusting and letting go.   Trusting myself to be the best artist I can be and then allowing myself to be that artist. The act of creation, while problem solving by nature, is also an act of faith and intuition. My best art happens when I surrender myself to the creative process and let the art make itself.

Many artists have influenced my work over the years but influences for my figurative work include Nathan Olivera, Manuel Neri and Raine Bedsole.    A mixed media approach is fairly new to me because I consider myself a painter, but an exploration of the transfer processes has led to a ten year adventure into mixed media and collage.  Working spontaneously, I use found papers as the base element of my collage pieces.   Once transfers are incorporated I use gesso like paint to mask and define images.   Charcoal and graphite conceal and reveal images and add an aged/vintage feel to the work.    What results is not always what I expect to happen.