Gail Roberts: 'Color Field' 2022

"In this series, I am painting everything that blooms within the boundaries of our property—flowers, weeds, vegetables, fruit trees, succulents, etc. Our garden is a profusion of imported and native plants creating an artificial, albeit bountiful, ecosystem and microcosm of the world. Six of the seven continents are represented in the garden with many plants native to North, Central, and South America, Europe, Africa, China, Middle East, and Australia. Whether large or small, widely popular or undervalued, drought-tolerant or water guzzlers, indigenous or alien, invasive or fragile, edible or toxic—all are given an equal platform in this ‘documentary on democracy’. The biodiversity in vegetation is the point of departure. The colors, shapes, and sizes of many of the flowers steal attention from others. But I believe that the subtlety of the underrepresented and less noticeable blossoms is an important contribution to the overall display. I am also an avid gatherer/collector of a variety of organic materials and correlating with this project is a collection of almost 250 dried flowers.

There are now over 130 paintings of singular flowers in the Color Field series, all the same size (20" x 24"), and completed over a five year period. Color Field refers to the visible color range in nature and the paintings are ordered by hue and exhibited as one continuous spectrum. Stepping outside my door, the natural environment has been a guiding and humbling springboard for my studio practice as a painter."

—Artist Gail Roberts

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