Craig Roberts

Helen Schneider, Director, Gallery 124
Kenosha Wisconsin

The works of Craig Roberts represent a part of that artistic process, of finding a balance between art and life. Using silver gelatin (black and white) and platinum print media, Mr. Roberts searches for that balance with his nudes. His goal - to express the true beauty that comes from within, who the person is, not the arrangement of skin.

From Mr. Roberts' early involvement with photography in the late 60's, there was an awareness of the use of the camera to record the human form and a developing love for the figure and the technical processes of photography. Technique with vision however, quickly becomes just an exercise and much of his early work which focused on learning the craft of print making has been consigned to the "fire".

In 1985, after meeting and studying with Edward Westons' son Cole, Mr. Roberts' vision began to emerge with the Industrial Nude Series.  Contrasts, of masculine and feminine, light and shadow, hard and soft were captured in these works.

"Aesthetically, Roberts has presented us with classical nudes that could have inspired the Greeks to carve the Venus de Milo.  These photographs of women are about vulnerability and beauty not sexuality. The huge machines are a metaphor for the masculine struggle for power and material transcendence.

The images are small. The energy rift is huge. I hope that Roberts pursues a series of reconciliatory images that serve to suture the psychic wound that this series clearly reveals."

Wes Pulka
Review in NUCITY

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, advises the artist to "... Draw near to nature." * Following that advice, Mr. Roberts has turned his camera on the infinite variety and beauty of the landscape, slowly and steadily healing the wounds exposed in the Industrial Nude Series.

* letters to a young poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)