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"Daybreak",
24"x40", o/c,
© Robert K.
Roark
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“About the
only thing that stayed constant during these years,” he says, “was
that my work was representational. I was never into abstract.” When I
asked him what he meant by “representational” he answered with what
I have come to know as the dry, Roark humor ¾
tolerant and amusing ¾
“You can look at my work,” he says, pointing animatedly toward his
numerous paintings in progress, “and see that that’s a pepper, that’s
a person, that’s a boat ¾
representational.” I got it. |
A rising young artist, with a comfortable future almost
assured, an event was about to change his life. It would be a sea change
that would uproot him from the now familiar surroundings and relative
security of the Northeast and take him back South for a while. He met
his future wife Anita, a Michigan girl, up for a visit from the
University of South Florida, where she was pursuing an education in art
history and photography. She came to the Cape to visit her brother.
Anita
Winstanley met Robert Roark on one of those occasional visits, and the
fertile seeds for Winstanley-Roark
Fine Arts were planted – although neither could have known it at
the time.
Whether
it affected him then, he doesn’t say, but he speaks of it now as if he
was being asked nothing more than to move from one side of a very small
room to another. “At the time, I was showing at Trees
Place in Orleans, MA. I had a summer place and steady work on the
Cape, and steady work and a place in New York.” As for his decision to
pack it all up and move with Anita to Florida, where she wanted to
pursue her art history and photographic interests, he’s typically
philosophical. “We went to Tampa and got married there. We then went
to Tucson, where Anita continued her studies at the University of
Arizona. We still came back to the Cape in the summer months to gather
ideas for my gallery work, though. When the paintings were completed I
shipped them to Trees.”
He never lost
a beat, or focus. He could paint anywhere: his talent was not limited by
location. Roark understood
then, as most successful gallery owners know today, that except for an
occasional visit to accommodate buyer interests at artist receptions, he
didn’t have to be where he sold; he only had to produce, and produce
he did.
The artist as businessman:
Tampa and
Tucson may have had a lot to offer, but they couldn’t match the charm
or vitality of the Cape arts community. Both he and his wife missed the
Cape terribly. Roark was now an established artist, and both his work
and the demand for it grew. He exhibited at the National
Arts Club in New York, the Wickersham
Gallery, the Fox Gallery, The Flynn Gallery and the Salmagundi
Club. His work was popping up in various states across the country:
Taos, New Mexico; Columbus, Ohio; Sarasota Florida, at the Smithsonian
in D.C. Museums wanted his works to be included in their permanent
collections: the Hirschorrn Museum
and the Cape Museum of Fine Arts.
After Anita
completed her program at the University of Arizona, they moved back to
the Cape with their newborn son, Devon, and began to set up shop as
framers, good ones at that. Anita, whose talent and expertise as a
photographer was growing, wanted to open a framing studio, and husband
and wife now, became owners of their own business.
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“We started
out as picture framers,” Roark says of their new undertaking, “and
next thing you know, artists, good artists, were seeking us out and we
were doing fine art framing. It sort of grew from there into a gallery.
We had the art. I was a painter. Anita was an accomplished photographer.
We started hanging our work alongside others’.”
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"Gathering
Storm", 16"x30", o/c,
© Robert K.
Roark
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Four years
ago, they decided to make the move from framing shop to gallery, naming
their new enterprise, appropriately enough, Winstanley-Roark
Fine Arts, and things haven’t been the same since. “The upside
of owning a gallery,” Roark says, “is that I can now do whatever I
want to do, within reason. But managing a gallery is time consuming.
Finding a balance between doing your own work and running a gallery is
difficult. It requires a lot of input and time.”
As busy as it is, Roark says that he and Anita are looking to
enlarge the gallery and increase the number of in-house artists.
The artist and his art:
The gallery
is a cozy, brightly lit place situated on two floors. On the first
floor, it’s all art; on the second floor, there’s even more art, as
well as his studio. Dozens of colorful paintings from an array of
talented artists hang prominently on the walls.
Bob points to
his latest work, an elegant piece he just completed which will be
auctioned for the “Pops by the Sea” concert to be held this year in
Hyannis, August 5. The concert, an annual event to raise funds for the Cape
Cod Artists Foundation, is performed by the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and Roark says he “is delighted
to have been asked to participate.” And there are more accolades: This
year, the Cape Cod Museum of Fine
Art will be featuring Roark’s work in a retrospective one man show
at their newly renovated, Polhemus/Savery
Gallery. The show, titled, “A Master of Light and Realism” will
highlight a compilation of paintings he has done throughout the years.
The show runs from November 18, 2001 thru January 20th, 2002.
Besides his
own work, and that of his wife ¾
Anita is an extraordinary photographer who’s won numerous awards and
recognition in her own right ¾
Roark enjoys being able to provide the opportunity to other artists to
display their work. “I’m constantly learning,” Roark says of other
artists’ works. “When I look at something in someone else’s
painting and see in it something that I have never done, or done quite
that way, I find it fascinating I’ll look at it and say, ‘Wow!’
I’ve never seen that before.”
As for his
own work, Roark says that he’s working primarily in oils now. “It
seems to be what people want.”
He’s
speaking now both as businessman and
artist.
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"Night
Watchman", 21" x 29", o/c
© Robert K.
Roark
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He’ll
paint on either canvas or board depending on upon subject matter. He’s
ambivalent. It’s all a matter of technicality to him. He uses both,
choosing whichever is called for on a case-by-case basis. “For
instance,” he says, “canvas does not lend itself to a lot
of detail. If you want real detail, you work with a board. And then
there are variations of canvas. Some give you more detail than
others.” It’s a toss. As he’s talking he spots something on one of
his paintings and walks over to it to clear it off with a brush of his
hand. It turns out that the something he noticed was a defect on a shelf he actually painted on.
“See, it really does matter.”
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So where’s
the passion? Can great artists really separate themselves from their
work? I ask him about this.
“It’s not the physicality of the thing”, he says, gazing at some
of his finished creations, “it’s not even the detail ¾
trees, or water or sky or even landscapes ¾
it’s the mood, the feeling you get when you look at it,” he says.
“I look at a painting’s texture and atmosphere. I like the romantic
image a painting conveys, you might say, the feeling
of a painting.”
He’s
right there. Ask any buyer why he or she buys art and, more often that
not, it’s the feeling that a painting conveys that lingers and
ultimately seduces one to purchase.
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And Bob
Roark’s paintings convey the feeling, the passion, the love of art
that those who love art seek.
It
has been a long haul, and both the Roarks will admit they have been
exceedingly fortunate in their quest for success. Times may have changed
since the early days when Bob Roark could almost pick his clients, but
he still maintains to this day that a good artist doesn’t have to
starve for his art. He only
has to get out there and show some talent.
The market will do the rest.
Gallery owners, he says, are always interested in reviewing new
talent, and will, if nothing else, look closely at pictures or slides
sent to their attention.
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"Reflections of Summer",
11"x14", o/p,
© by Robert K.
Roark
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Just as
we’re wrapping up, I ask if he would finish the following thought . .
. “When I paint I like to . . .”
“… listen
to music.” he replies.
He leans back
in his chair and turns slightly to a stack of CD’s, “Well, I have
Mozart, Beethoven, Gene Autry . . .”
Hold on
there, “Did you say Gene Autry “, I ask?
“Oh, yes, I
have all of the recordings of Gene Autry, Sophie Tucker, Robert Mitchum,
Jerry Lewis,” and the list gets even more eclectic as he reads along.
I guess
it’s sort of like the way he views his fantasy art, which he explains
this way: “You can take great license with it as you go along because
nobody can say that that’s not the way it is. Even if it may not make
sense to anyone else, if it makes sense to you, that’s all that
matters.”
Yeah, but Gene Autry and Beethoven?
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