The Tamarack Foundation for the Arts
Stifel Fine Arts Center
Presents
2022 TFA Master Artist Fellowship Recipient
Robert Singleton
60 Year Retrospective
The Works of Robert Singleton - 1963 ~ 2022
“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”
Gallery I Finding A Way
Florida - 1963 ~ 1974
Gallery II
Mystical Meditations
Screamer Mountain – 1973 ~ 1978
Gallery III
Quest For Grace
West Virginia 1978 ~ 2012
Gallery IV Romanced Horizons
West Virginia 2012 ~ 2022
Ambient Music by Dan Morro
Resources Guest Book
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The Florida years were full of the vitality of youth.
The works were spontaneous, sensuous, at times reckless,
constantly changing and searching,
always reaching beyond the last painting, reaching beyond myself.
Yet critics described the work as "mature, serious, a sensitive artist."
Only now, with 20/20 hindsight do I know they were the necessary ground work
for the years to come, when I believed that maturity would come.
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Mystical meditations, there was a pronounced presence of balance,
order and light in this new work up on Screamer Mountain.
The mystical substance, an illusion,
being the unknown source of light within the painting.
Mountains are symbols, like pyramids,
of man’s attempt to know.
Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and the spiritual world..
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October 1978
It was indeed one of those clear fall days where the trees are a blaze
of color against a royal blue sky. As we approached the clearing,
we frightened off a dozen or so deer.
The clearing was located on the crest of a ridge.
When I walked to the center of the clearing and turned around,
I knew in an instant, this is the place. I stood on the very spot
where my life’s dream would come to be built, my home and studio.
Gallery IV Romanced Horizons
West Virginia 2012 ~ 2022
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Visually, what I was experiencing was profound. The Horizon Line.
A line that was the division between the sky and the wide-open prairie.
Nothing man-made, just me, the sky; uncluttered space,
empty space with this hard, crisp line intersecting with the earth below.
I identified with the loneliness, as deep inside I was alone with this great vista.
I wanted to walk into its simplicity alone. It was the embodiment of being alone.
The tie between the visual and the emotional self merged.
All I had to do was draw a horizontal line across a canvas and I would become
inspired to paint an image using that line as the main compositional component.
B i o g r a p h y
I
am
84
years
old
and
have
lived
half
of
those
years
on
a
remote
mountain
top
in
rural
West
Virginia
seeking unspoiled creativity.
My
work
has
its
roots
in
abstract
expressionism.
1956-57
I
studied
painting
with
a
student
of
Hans
Hoffman.
Over
nearly
sixty
years
my
art
has
passed
through
many
transformations.
In
the
same
way
I
as
a person have evolved.
Like
most
artists,
my
work
had
been
greatly
affected
by
interpretations
of
the
visual
world
around
me.
The
most
important
discovery
early
in
my
life/work,
the
one
component
that
would
appear
time
after
time,
over
decades,
was
the
Horizon
line
of the Midwest.
In
1960,
I
traveled
across
the
United
States
by
car
and
saw
for
the
first
time
the
great
expanse
of
the plans of the Midwest.
Visually
what
I
was
experiencing
was
profound.
The
Horizon
Line.
I
wrote
in
my
sketchbook,
"You
can
turn
360
degrees
and
see
nothing.”
From
Kansas
on,
this
line
spellbound
me.
A
line
that
was
the
division
between
sky
and
the
wide-open
prairie;
uncluttered
space,
empty
space
with
this
hard,
crisp
line intersecting. It was the essence of being alone.
Nothing
man
made,
just
me,
the
sky,
that
line
and
the
earth
below.
I
identified
with
the
loneliness,
as
deep
inside
I
was
on
my
own
with
this
great
vista.
I
wanted to walk into that simplicity alone.
As
a
child,
on
many
levels,
I
was
accustomed
to
loneliness.
Visually,
what
I
was
witnessing
translated
to
deep
emotions.
I
saw,
what
I
as
a
child
had
felt.
I
found in the natural world a human emotion.
In
the
years
to
come,
this
emotion
would
translate
into
images
of
empty
space
divided
by
a
single
horizontal
line.
The
tie
between
the
visual
and
the
emotional self would merge.
In
the
mid-seventies
another
component
became
part
of
my
repertoire
of
images.
Images
that
are
often
taken
for
granted,
seen
every
day;
above
the
horizon
line
filled
with
abstract
forms
of
light
and
atmosphere,
the ever-changing poetry of Clouds.
Creation
is
often
described
as
a
movement
from
an
eternal
unformed
and
unchanging
dark
chaos
in
which
sky
and
earth
lie
together
in
a
changeless
embrace
until
forced
apart
by
their
offspring
who
drives
a
wedge
between
them
producing
light
and
movement.
My
paintings
resemble
these
creation
myths.
Why
did
our
early
ancestors
pick
the
meeting
of sky and earth as a creative beginning?
Each
of
my
later
paintings
is
a
creation
whose
subject
is
creation.
Sky
and
earth
are
usually
male
and
female
in
myth
and
from
this
polarity
all
other
things
derive.
Without
polar
tensions
there
is
no
motion
and
no
story.
Thus,
the
sky
and
sea
(or
earth)
always
divided
by
a
horizon
/
wedge
to
keep
them
in
tension
produces
clouds
which
in
their
movement
and
reflection of light bring in temporality and process.
Nothing
changes
more
quickly
than
clouds
whose
shape
and
color
can
announce
brutal
violence
or
reflect
glorious
spectacular
light
through
which
our
consciousness hopes to gain unity with nature.
NEXT PAGE
This
experience
gave
me
the
background
for
the
mission
I
would
soon
find
himself
on,
being
a
compassionate
caregiver.
In
the
ensuing
years
of
the
AIDS
epidemic,
I
became
the
primary
caregiver
for
my
life
companion
and
many
lifelong
friends,
through
thick
and
thin, until their death.
Then
coping
with
the
aftermath
of
the
AIDS
epidemic
and
depression;
for
nearly
two
decades I did not paint.
In
the
summer
of
2012,
through
the
encouragement
of
a
caring
friend,
I
rediscovered
the
pure
joy
of
the
creative
emergence.
At
this
new
juncture
of
my
life,
I
was
back
to
painting
full
time
and
pleased
to
share
the
results
of
this
new
beginning
which
continues to this day.
Most
of
my
clouds
announce
better
and
maybe
greater
events
are
about
to
happen.
The
paintings
reveal the "world" of our moment
and more relevant way.
The
story
of
my
work
is
about
creativity
and
where
it
comes
from.
It
is
really
about
the
creator,
the
author
of
metaphors;
the
biographer
of
illusions.
It
is
more
about
life,
and
the
influence
of
life’s
connected
events,
that result in the measured evolution of the creative act.
These
images
provide
a
means
of
uncovering
the
core
of
our
collective
evolutionary
message;
our
intuitive
understanding
and
cumulative
experience
ingrained
and
transmitted
through
generations
since
the
dawn
of
time
.
.
.
.
.
.
Creativity
is
the
search
for
our
shared universal awareness.
In
1978
I
moved
to
a
remote
mountain
top
in
West
Virginia
where
I
designed
and
built
my
home
and
studio
in order to focus exclusively on creativity.
Nonetheless,
from
1993
until
2012,
for
nearly
two
decades
I
did
not
paint
if
anything,
I
rarely
went
into
my
studio.
My
work
became
secondary
as
my
application
to
life
shifted.
I
served
for
ten
years
as
a
member
of
the
board
of
directors
of
the
Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross
Center.
Dr.
Ross,
was
a
close
friend.
She
is
an
internationally
recognized
author
and
instrumental
in
founding
Hospice.
This
friendship
developed
after
attending
her
"Life,
Death
and
Transition"
workshop.
These
workshops
provide
training
and
counseling
for
working
with death and dying.
R e s o u r c e s
•
The Art of Living: 60 Propositions on Becoming
•
The Cloud Painter and the Berlin Musician
•
The Man Who Paints Clouds
•
CORE of MY JOY / Memoir
Part I - For the Joy of Light - Color Retrospective - 1964 – 2020
Part II – Until I Become Light - A Memoir
•
Until I Become Light
Award winning film documentary aired on PBS and other venues
2002 Produced by Real Earth Productions
•
West Virginia Public Broadcasting | By Kyle Vass
Published September 1, 2021 at 12:01 PM EDT
•
The Works of Robert Singleton
1949 ~ 2022
A Matter of Conscience
GUEST BOOK
“War is a place where young people who don’t know each other, and don’t hate each other, kill each
other, by the decision of older rulers who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each
other…”
Erich Hartmann: German fighter pilot during World War II.
*
March 24, 2022: I saw this picture in the news. It collided with me at the core. Bring back images from the distant past.
*
1969 Vietnam
2022 Ukraine
Next Page
Casualties of Wars
Romance on Canvas
By Grace Kehrer
Spring 1969
Robert Singleton as an artist stands in the shadows of Romantic, realistic and transcendental
movements where notions like Nature, Man, Society, Individualism and Responsibility are strained
though the reality of two world wars, police actions, a crass materialism and an intensifying
depersonalization. Finding himself caught up in a miasmic atmosphere created, in part, by computer,
"Wagers" and a relativistic viewpoint, Singleton, the self-admitted incurable romantic, attempts to
understand a sick society and bring intelligible order to a chaotic universe.
Singleton's paintings on oversize canvases, done in primary colors, stand testimonial to contemporary
styling techniques executed under the banner of "Art for Art's sake." However, the questions, often
spelled out in block letters, are timeless and universal. While Singleton does not offer a solution to the
problem of man's inhumanity to man, nor locate a center of human spirituality, he does examine the
phenomena, continuing the quest in a personal, thoughtful and sensitive manner.
The second painting develops the idea of journalistic responsibility and influence. Interjecting often ignored,
possibly forgotten notions of equality, ethics, freedom and unbiased news, printed upon a white field
surrounding a patriotically colored center, one can only hope these subtleties are not lost on the Sentinel staff.
Journalistic Responsibility – 1967 – 78” X 120” ~ Commissioned by the Orlando Sentinel
Singleton's latest work, one produced after much thought, recognizes the reality of the generation gap.
A literary message, in dialogue form over the figure of a dying boy, it exposes the inarticulate nature of
questions, the naivete of answers and the pain suffered by men separated by chronological age and
appetite.
Text as it appearers in painting
IJUSTDEPARTEDWHYNATIONAL
SECURITYWHATTHEYCALLWAR
WHYSOWAGERSMAYLIVEBUTYOU
ARESOYOUNGTHEYOUTHHAVETHE
STRENGTHOFBODYWHATOSLIFE
THATISFORTHEWAGERSWONT
YOUMISSITWHATOFLIFEWHY
WHATOFLIFEWHYWONTYOU
MISSITWHYWHYWHYWHY
Legible
"I just departed." "Why'?" "National
Security; what they call war."
"Why?" "So wagers may live" "But you
are so young" "The youth have the
strength of body" "What of life?"
"That is for the wagers." "Won’t
you miss It?" "What of life?''
"Why?" "Won't you miss it?"
"Why?" "What of life?''
1969 Florida State University
– With WHY? hanging the background; students discussing the responsibility of artist according
to what they believe is morally right, to document their time, to protest, to reflect through their work the contemporary
violent values of humanity and the world. Be it visual arts, literature or music.