Bob Rohm

Bob Rohm was born and raised in the northeastern United States. After graduating in 1970 from the York Academy of Arts, York, Pennsylvania, he entered into a career in the film and video production business. He began as a camera assistant and quickly became a director and producer. Rohm’s work schedule eventually led him to stop painting altogether for almost ten years.

Rohm’s return to painting was triggered in early 1980s, when he moved to Texas. There he was inspired by the landscape of stark simplicity and solitary beauty. He began to cut back his production business in order to paint part time, and in a few short years became a full time artist.

“Working in oil, acrylic and pastel media, I try to capture the dynamics of the interplay of color and light by emphasizing the shapes which they create. I try to reduce each scene to only the essential elements. I strive not to concern myself with illustrative detail. Detail, as such, is suggested. I play up the elements of color and value creating contrasting relationships of hard and soft edges, opaque and translucent paint, warm and cool colors, dark and light values. To establish the representational aspects of a scene I use tonal and impressionistic color and then add strokes of open color accents for personal expression and interest.

My goal is to communicate the emotions of the abstract through representational painting. The challenge is to take the viewer beyond the subject depicted and bring them into an emotional response to the abstract elements of shape, form, texture, value and color. In addition to the subject, I also strive to make the surface of my paintings interesting through the use of varying thicknesses of paint and brushwork. The messages in my paintings are the works themselves, the interplay of the elements, not the storytelling of the representational content.”

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