Gail Roberts
Artist Statement

For eighteen years we lived in Valley Center, a small rural community north of San Diego, California.  The immediate landscape in that area was a significant source of inspiration for my work as a visual artist and I absorbed and interpreted the conditions that continued to alter the terrain.  The subjects in the paintings and drawings were nearby ponds, streams, trees, reservoirs and broad vistas that I observed from hour to hour, morning to evening, season to season, in the heat, wind, rain, fog, and frost. Although California is considered to have a moderate climate, the landscape undergoes remarkable changes throughout seasons of drought, floods, fires, erosion, and earthquakes.  The paintings represented a sustained focus of conditions that alter the environment over a period of time and reflected changes in light, weather, time, seasons, natural catastrophes, and urban development. 

However, in recent years, the encroachment of housing developments and casinos were also causing traffic congestion and adversely affected our commute into San Diego.  It no longer seemed feasible to have the best of both worlds and during the summer of 2006 we moved back into the city.  The impact of this decision has directly affected the content of my work.  The new work is exploring a new range of concepts in response to the compromised and troubled relationship to nature in today’s fast-paced culture.