Peter Roberts celebrates anniversary with exhibition of 'travel posters' to storied landscapes
Peter Roberts entered his first art show in second grade with his version of a cover for L. Frank Baum’s classic travel story, “The Wizard of Oz.” He even won a prize and a handwritten note of congratulations from the Fairfield (Connecticut) children’s librarian.
“It was such a thrill,” Roberts gushed, holding the note with tenderness.
He set the gently loved keepsake on his desk then turned to hold up a framed 12-inch-by-16-inch-by-1.25-inch paper cut assemblage inviting visitors to the Emerald City, “By Land & By Air,” replete with a shiny, winding yellow brick road leading the way. It is one of the “travel posters” Roberts has created for “Mental Properties,” his solo exhibition that debuts at Location Gallery, 251 Bull St., July 20, which is both the tenth anniversary of his first solo show and his 60th birthday. (There will be cake!)
That first show a decade ago, a series entitled “Elsewhere,” also evoked a sense of place by artfully and playfully comparing cities of the same names – Fairfield, Orange, Springfield, among them – across different geographies. A few of the originals hang on the walls of the circa-1918 Baldwin Park home he shares with his husband John Deering, director of design for Greenline Architecture.
His latest series “is all about travel posters from fictional places, with their funny little slogans. It’s about memory and about nostalgia and about looking at things through an older lens – you know, it’s a little bit of reverb.”
'Who doesn't love a hookah-smoking caterpillar?'
Roberts drew from music, literature, movies and pop culture to compose a list of 80 fictional places, which he pared down by asking himself a series of questions: It is meaningful? Does it resonate? Is it funny? Can I pull it off?
“It all starts with a list,” he explained. “Copious lists. And then you go through, yes, no, maybe.”
What has emerged is a delightful romp across emotional geography in 24 frames, from places that elicit visceral responses because the tiny details in each paper cut unpacks the unconscious. A viewer can’t help but shiver at the murder of crows hanging out on a retro metal jungle gym overlooking Bodega Bay or the eyes peering from the second-floor window of a house in Haddonfield, Illinois. The cheerful crabs leaning against a wooden dune fence on Amity Island belie what lurks beneath pale blue mylar waves. Roberts dares gazers not to dance before Planet Claire or Funky Town, especially when mirror ball paper is involved.
“And who doesn’t love a hookah-smoking caterpillar?” Roberts asked about a trip to Wonderland. “It’s a chance to flex some imagination.”
The works traverse Asgard to Zuckerman’s Farm and conjure the vivid colors and graphic muscularity of National Parks posters created during the Works Progress Administration-era of the 1930s – particularly the one for Twin Peaks.
“The funny thing is they’re gonna think they’ve been there, but they haven’t been there,” he said with a sly laugh.
'Down the rabbit hole'
Roberts draws the shapes, including the differently colored, itsy-bitsy waves in lava lamps, in vector to make templates. Then, he uses an electronic cutting machine so that he can assemble each individual blade on a stegosaurus’ back for Isla Nublar or every snow-capped tree in Narnia. He uses plastic earring backs to elevate pieces and diffuse light, unless he wants to cast some shadows, in which case he uses foam core blocks.
He admits to sometime going down the rabbit hole. “I like to have fun with it. I also like to have a little bit of puzzle-making, so that people stay in it and on the piece a little bit longer… There are literally layers and layers to it with nods back to the original source material, because I think we all remember things in different ways.”
Because people stay with the pieces a little longer, they spark conversation and create connections, whether it’s about a favorite episode of the Flintstones (Bam! Bam!), tears shed when Charlotte the spider died, how an entire generation of people can’t dip a toe in the ocean without hearing two bass notes, about the time they saw the B-52s at Mardi Gras…
Roberts’s talent for scene-setting and emotion-generating makes sense given his background in television, first producing commercials then running his own advertising firm. Then he moved into branding and graphic design before, at the age of 50, allowing his artistic side to take center stage. For the past eight years, he has served as director of Location Gallery, where he has helped elevate Savannah’s artists through group and solo shows while raising funds for nonprofit organizations. Proceeds from “Mental Properties” will go toward ARTS Southeast.
The gallery is one way he hopes to break through Savannah’s silo mentality, making art accessible and available at all kinds of price points and strengthening the connective tissue among artists of all media.
“We all need to realize,” he said, “that without us supporting each other, none of us are going to make it.”
Roberts envisions a “proper three-and-a-half-day indoor art fair” supported by area galleries and professionals to solidify Savannah as an arts destination. “If you give people a really, really good exhibition, they’ll come back again."
For real.
The Curators: "What Would Howard Do?" from Beacon magazine
If You Go >>
What: Peter Roberts presents solo exhibition "Mental Properties"
When: Opening reception, 4 to 7 p.m., July 20
Where: Location Gallery, 521 Bull St., Savannah
Info: locationgallery.net/events
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Take a tour through storied landscapes at Savannah's Location Gallery
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