The recent paintings by Johnny Robertson explore issues of landscape and…they revel in the emotional impact of diminishing sense of place. These images originated in July 2003 on the road between Texas and Southern California. To produce them, Robertson took photo studies through the window of a moving car or along a roadside. Unlike…symbols associated with movement, Robertson’s images capture the scene from a position of mobility. When the photos are translated into paintings, the cropped views of mostly sky may lack tangible evidence of place, but they enjoy a palpably rich color, saturated light and dense atmosphere. In a way, Robertson’s works parallel the sublime American landscape paintings of the 19th century in their observation of man’s smallness versus nature’s magnitude. They evoke distance and human isolation, but because they are taken from a car as it travels, and due to the introduction of the airplane into this group of paintings, his work also emphasizes man’s separation from nature and the fragile stability of passing through space.

From “Going West: Ten Contemporary Artists’ Explorations” curated by Erin Keever and organized by Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, TX, 2004.