Ray Roberts and Navajo Blankets will be on view at Manitou Galleries on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 11 through July 3.
Desert View, oil on linen, 30 x 40”
“A lot of my inspiration and compulsion is very intuitive,” he says. His paintings combine the things he loves—the light and color of the high desert, the beauty of the Navajo people and their traditions and the intricate designs of their woven blankets.
Ghost Ranch Color, oil on linen, 24 x 18”
He and his wife, Peggi, were illustrators before they both turned to fine art in 1992. He admires the great illustrators of the past, “their shapes, the color and the geometry. They were pure design.” That experience led him to appreciate the designs of Navajo weaving, which influence the strong composition of his paintings. He had taken an anthropology course when he was in high school in Arizona and notes, “the Navajo geometric designs have stuck with me.”
High Desert Warmth, oil on linen, 12 x 16”
Roberts invites viewers of his paintings to stand in the spot of his subjects, to reflect and to be absorbed by the ancient landscape with its millions of years of colorful layers exposed by wind and rain. His figures embody his reverence for Navajo women and their importance in Diné culture and celebrate the integration of their love for and mystical attachment to the earth into their woven designs.
Wrapped in Art, oil on linen, 24 x 18”
In Desert View, the figure is posed to the right of center, inviting the viewer to look along with her at the northeast entrance to the Grand Canyon. He says he is “constantly searching and evolving,” experimenting and growing in his skill. In Ghost Ranch Color he “blasts out the light” in a successful “personal challenge” to capture the red in the blanket in a spot between being vividly saturated, as in Desert View, and being washed out and gray. The figure in Ghost Ranch Color, as well as those in other paintings are, in effect, vignetted against the background, bringing attention to them as individuals and to their intricate weavings. —
UPCOMING SHOW
Up to 12 works
June 11-July 3, 2021
Manitou Galleries
225 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 986-9833, www.manitougalleries.com
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