JEROME
JEROME
ROBERTSON
sword of the spirit
Scroll below for gallery of Images on Jerome and his work.
Jerome Robertson has been impassioned by visual imagery and the need to manifest such, in oil, acrylic, and drawing, across the course of his life. He paints from his home in South Los Angeles with his small garage often being his painting studio. He also has availed himself of art collectives and studio projects utilizing their studio space and the comradery of other artists, including many years with the Art Works Continuum Project, the Skid Row Lamp Art Project, and Studio 526.
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Jerome's focus employs an abundance of symbology which he juxtaposes in his compositions, with themes such as his Weeping Einsteins, and Leonardo da Vincis, African Mother Earth figures, and after studying Kandindskys at LACMA, and relationships between Modern Art and African Tribal Art, began utilizing and experimenting a deconstructed fragmentation of images woven back into the whole of the picture plane. His "Abstraction with Coca-Cola Bottle" oil on canvas 24"x18" exemplifies this latter theme.
His dynamic emotive symbolism often exhibits his interest in contemporary sociological issues, both at a universal and national level, and such that are epitomized living as an aware and sensitive Black artist in the deep landscape of South Los Angeles.
Utilizing his parallel ongoing theme of self-portraiture, which often directly confronts the viewer, "Justice Afire" 24"x30" oil on canvas, interweaves and counterpoints Jerome's own visage with that of the United States Supreme Court with images of Martial Law vehicles upon the street, flames and humans.
Other combinations of sociological symbolism and self portraiture communicate other themes, including personal existential issues and choices before him. (cf "Hallway of Doors" 24"x24" acrylic on canvas).
Jerome's personal spiritual quest and life, and deep roots and passions in the Black Gospel Church also resound throughout this artist's ouevre as a key element of the inner and outer world within which this artist lives his daily life and creates his paintings. (cf. "Self-Portrait with Black Christ" 30"x40" oil on canvas).
Jerome and his work are seen both in the major documentary motion picture "Passing Through" Dektor Films 2018 (seen on Amazon Prime, Sony Classics, and most major streaming venues) as well as in the parallel book, "We Are We Dance We Paint".
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The three to five year period in which the film and book were being constructed also embodied a behind the scenes, and oft leaking into the film itself, dialogue between the urban spirito-existentialist oil painter, Jerome, and the multiply nominated and thrice awarded Director's Guild of America director, Leslie Dektor.
Dektor is currently working in the seventh or so year of preproduction on the dramatic cinematographic biopic "Lange" with executive producer David Fincher on the life of Dorothea Lange.
It was Dektor's study of Lange's life and imagery that caused this director to become fascinated and then heavily involved with Jerome Robertson and the handful of artists quietly yet catalytically mirroring the current important period of history unfolding before us in South, Downtown, and Greater Los Angeles.
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(notes and photos by rory white founder of Lamp Art Project and Art Works Continuum)
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