Robert Maki

"Arcanist" grows from visiting the the lava flows south of Bend where hollow forms or voids remain where trees once stood. "Tandem Ovals" links in single form in an arcing fashion, but still remains isolated, yet unfettered. "Daebob Cliff" sets on a diagonal as the single shape is sustained by scale and color floating on a bed of graphite washed with tonal variations . "Mirror I" reflects itself in a combination of line and mass and a vigorous making... with a indifference to anything but being.

These works on paper are heavily influenced by the landscape, geology and topography experienced as a child growing up and traveling throughout the Oregon Washington and Idaho.  This is coupled with an exposure, at an young age, to the master works of Casper Fredrich, Ryder, Homer and Whistler ... and later Degas, Matisse and Mondrain, and the figurative training in art school.

.....The Columbia River Gorge tunnels that no longer exist, Celilo Falls that disappeared with dam construction and the experience of floods that are now controlled by those dams.... the perspective approaching Mt. Hood... the open expanse of the high desert and rolling Palouse country..... the attraction to the barn or boxcar, singular against the landscape.

Powerful giant monolithic basalt slabs tilted upward by geological forces and sloping to define the rivers edge.  Geological formations of basalt and weathering mesa shapes in dark silhouettes seeming to measure time and place.

The lava flows, and is chilled as it surrounds trees, objects and other land forms leaving voids, cavities and tunnels.

The process of formation, and the linking of geological phenomena in a sequence of events defining and reshaping the landscape.

The single object or formation setting in the open field or desert, intensified, it's mystery and ambiguity.  The wonder, discovery, beauty and solitude -- singular and contemplative -- it's many possibilities and associations and tremendous scale differential.