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This touring exhibition, called “Identity and Self” is available for your museum or arts venue – contact Robert for 2026-27 schedule

“Identity and Self” – An Exhibition Description

“Identity and Self” exhibited at the Park Circle Gallery in April 2026 and featured recent paintings from my personal collection, focusing on non-commission portraiture and imaginary realism, each a meditation, challenging our ideas on Identity and Self. For example, who am I as a survivor of CSA? Who am I as an artist? This exhibition was expanded for my installation at the PSOAE during Spoleto 2026 in Charleston. The idea behind the exhibition is how our ideas of identity interfere with our truest self, our true freedom, which is a central value for an artist, as well as any self-actualized individual. The idea can be as simple as, for instance, when I draw my idea of a thing, rather than opening myself up to the full potential contained in the thing itself, how I am limiting my creative potential. When I attach identifiers, “things,” to characters I am creating as an actor or portraitist, I find it so easy to lose their essence. This is even more true in life, when we lose touch with our true selves, when we attach shorthand identifiers to who we are, like “I am loving” or “I am patriotic,” “I am a survivor of CSA,” the work reflects how these limit what else might be possible. It is clear to me that I am infinitely more than who I say I am as a father, a Christian, middle class, a realist, an artist, a businessman, etc. These are a meaningless distraction from who I am, which is operating at my core.

I remember at Circle in the Square Actor Training, with the legendary Terri Hayden, who was Blanche to Marlon Brando’s Stanley, in the original Broadway production Streetcar Named Desire. A young actor stood up in front of our class and with great difficulty announced, “I’m gay.” She paused a moment, then said, “and what else are you?” The question opened a world of possibility for this young man and to we, his colleagues.

So, who are we at our core, after we strip away the names we call ourselves, little cages that steal our freedom. Are we the parties with whom we affiliate, the causes for which we are fighting?  After all, as important as we make these things, they are all inventions of the ego, which separate us from God and the infinite. The study of neutrality doesn’t mean we don’t take a stand. On the contrary, each stroke of paint, each piece, each character is an act of revolution.

I had an epiphany a while back. I was blessed with a glimpse into the eternal workings of the universe. I can’t even trace it back to a particular moment.  It came out of a simple thought. I realized I am one with everything, that God is everywhere, even in my darkest thoughts and even on the farthest, unimaginable planet. I didn’t experience God with my ego. It wasn’t a picture of a bearded man in a white robe. But I was no longer “Robert.” I had a simple, quiet experience of WE AS ONE, from my true self. Perhaps it was when I looked into a scene I was painting or a moment on stage when everyone in the room was connected with a feeling we experienced together, where I felt an overwhelming connection with all things.  The sense of oneness has never left my consciousness. It’s as if it has always been there, which it has.

 

I believe I am a painter of the self. I am looking always for something deeper than the surface representations in my subjects. It is your true self I am looking for when I paint you.

When we are faced with this awesome realization, our ego seems so small; the things we value, so unimportant.  My idea of myself, of God, of the way of the world, have fallen away.  All the inventions of man now seem so small, yet ever so much more marvelous. Reality has become larger and yet somehow less imposing. When I become overwhelmed with the demands of my life, I simply remember it is all one and then I am free again, free indeed. I believe this we-as-one self is available in life and even after.

More from the exhibition is available on request.