Honest Portrayals

THE PAINTINGS OF MARIO ROBINSON FOCUS ON THE ESSENCE OF THE SITTER AS WELL AS THEIR UNIVERSAL TRUTHS

- John O'Hern

Carl Jung (1875-1961), the founder of analytical psychology, wrote, “One doesn’t become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.”

Mario Robinson doesn’t paint “pretty pictures.” He paints what we see and what we don’t see. His watercolors of family and friends as well as scenes near his home on the Jersey Shore and his childhood home in Oklahoma make the darkness conscious.

He quotes Andrew Wyeth, who wrote, “I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason for painting but that. If I have anything to offer, it is my emotional contact with the place where I live and the people I do.”

Robinson’s love for the people and places he paints goes deep. He acknowledges the dark side of Wyeth and observes, “the darkness isn’t a device. It’s the real underbelly of life.” He discovered Wyeth in a print of his painting Master Bedroom. Fascinated, he “spent all day in the reference room of the library checking him out. I hadn’t seen his portraits until then. I pored through big books on Wyeth and became enamored with the freedom and the flow of his watercolors. I had been working in pastel because I had heard how difficult watercolor is. In 2001 I finally sat down and tried it.”