1. Curator’s Essay on Robert Stuart
Voices of Art magazine, Volume 13, issue 1, 2004
When attending a lecture by painter Robert Stuart, there is a singular moment when
he moves from one body of work to another that is punctuated by an audible gasp
from the audience. This is a line of demarcation between two lives of a singular
artist: that of objective realism and the ensuing abstractions that were waiting to
emerge.
Almost a decade ago, I became aware of Stuart’s landscape paintings of the
Shenandoah Valley in his native Virginia. Brilliantly painted, the most striking aspect
of these works was the way the artist used objects and surfaces to portray light; the
landscapes had such a simple yet sophisticated luminescence that they looked as if
they were made by an abstract painter who went outside. Years later, during a
studio visit with a photographer in Virginia, I happened upon some abstract
paintings that she was documenting. These paintings looked as if the work of
Agnes Martin, Robert Irwin, Mark Rothko, and Dan Flavin had joined together and
borne progeny. This was new work—a radical and drastic departure from still life
and landscape—by artist, Robert Stuart. With the same sensitivity given to his
paintings of objective forms, now the subject is purely light: not just in the sense of
content, but in the same way that an object is given form on a two-dimensional
surface in a still life painting. It is no surprise that light, itself, is given form in these
abstract paintings. Unlike the static nature of a traditional object oriented
composition, this work gives life to what is otherwise ephemeral, thereby alluding to
time as a temporal state.
As an accomplished and established still life and landscape painter, Stuart has
made a career of studying the properties of light and its effect on form. Perhaps the
years leading up to this dramatic stylistic change readied him to paint these surfaces
that pulsate with color, texture, and yes, light. After years of depicting the objective

2. forms that acted as carriers, the artist began to paint light so strongly and directly
that he simply no longer needed representational subject matter on which to place
it. To fully understand something provides the ability to abstract it. Stuart’s innate
knowledge of light shows in the way he uses contrasting value and color in the
figure/ground relationships of the works to create a sense of pictorial space
between field and subject—in this case, bands of bright color and/or value
contrasting with the subtle texture and color of the field. Using a pared down
aesthetic, the artist is able to employ basic geometric shapes, proportion, and color
to make paintings that practically vibrate off the wall. In addition to color and value
contrasts, the artist’s use of wax on the surface allows the light and color to interact
in such a way that advances and recedes, simultaneously. Although working within a
sparse visual vocabulary, Stuart makes works that are neither cold nor distant.
Conversely, the works are vaguely and comfortingly familiar. Evoking common forms
and familiar shapes, the paintings draw the viewer in, with abstract reference to the
objective physical world. “At times there have been particular correspondences in
the natural, phenomenal, and physical world to what I hope for in a painting,” says
Stuart. He goes on to tell a story of walking through the loft of an old barn on his
property and noticing the early morning light streaming through the floor boards,
resulting in brilliant crevices of light on the interior surface below him. This, to
Stuart, was a metaphor for some sort of creative awakening.
Perhaps it is the regularity of spacing of the lines, bands, and geometric forms that
provide the familiar infrastructure to which we can relate in these paintings. A visit
to the artist’s studio in historic downtown Staunton, Virginia, reveals how the
symmetry of architecture and the built form can be related to Stuartís paintings.
That idea is nowhere as strong as the view through the artistís studio to the antique
buildings across the street. While the tall rectangular windows glow with the light
moving inward, the repetitive aspect of the architectural materials and the negative
space between are clearly reminiscent of the band of color and light in the paintings.

3. Regardless of the viewer’s specific frame of reference or imposed meaning, the
paintings are clearly and ultimately meant to visually please. Painting’s meaning can
be measured in the production of a resonance with one’s feelings and experience,
or, as an instigator for those feelings and a response. One can also experience a
kind of beauty that brings a whole and complete joy. That in itself is meaningful and
important. Similarly, through the action of painting, the artist experiences the same
potential for reaching a state of beauty or fullness and its subsequent resonance.
The result is something that creates movement and response and, in turn, allows for
the shared experience—a transcendental conversation between artist and viewer.
The significance of resonance here is particularly poignant as, in its purest definition,
the word speaks of a vibration of air in an empty chamber—something that comes
through loud and clear in Robert Stuart’s work, both emotionally and physically.
Mary Mikel Stump, Director | Curator, The Texas State University Galleries