Untitled
Acrylic on Canvas

Robert Putnam

Artist Robert Putnam works with areas or fields of color using layers of paint to build up a surface and a texture. By tuning the color relationships and layering fields of color, depth and an illusion of three dimensionality may emerge. For focus, Putnam looks to aerial views of fields, archeological excavations, burnt buildings, buried cities, color patches floating in infinite space, to the light filtered through cathedral stained glass.

Color and form in a well-made painting will resonate with something innate to our humanness, either in the consciousness or with something buried deep in the unconscious. The artist's job is to discover or create these forms. Effective form may be discovered anywhere: in a pile of spilled gravel by the roadside or in the pattern of cracks in a broken sidewalk, for example. Or form may be created by arranging parts into a balanced whole, or for that matter into a fragmented, unbalanced whole. Form may also be created out of nothing, experimenting with paint and color until something begins to emerge that is true and exciting. Putnam creates from images in the imagination, perhaps archetypical, and from observation of nature filtered through emotion and feeling.

The mystery of the world is seen in nature and may also be discovered by making feelings and emotions visible. These visual markings open a window to our spiritual foundation. Through color-form-texture relationships, Putnam tries to create a stillness and silence that points to the mystery.

Robert Putnam has had college courses in engineering drafting, geometrical construction, drawing and sketching, acrylic painting, and oil painting. He received his BA in English Literature from the University of Illinois and his MA in English Literature from Roosevelt. As Vice President of American Technical Publishing, Putnam ran the editorial and art departments and gained some 30 years experience in developing and finishing technical illustration for textbooks, training manuals, and operational manuals. As a freelance consultant, Putnam has written and illustrated hundreds of training and operational manuals for heavy industry (papermaking), manufacturing, railroad bridge maintenance, rigging, electrical power grids, site maintenance, and safety. He also wrote nine textbooks in the areas of building technology, carpentry, bricklaying, welding, and blueprint reading.