FOCUS: Sally Robertson // A Thirty Year Retrospective

Lush and sensual, Sally Robertson’s masterful watercolor paintings conjure the feel of a delicate petal, the scent of sweet fragrance, or the sound of koi splashing in her beautifully curated garden. In our time of shortened attention spans and visual overload, to focus on a small view of nature, and then slowly render it in the challenging medium of watercolor, is rare. To create art from this process is magical and exceptional. Sally does this daily in her Bolinas home where her lyrical garden and art evolved together for over forty years.

My watercolor paintings have developed over the decades; sometimes it is the morning light on a petal, which evokes a painting, other times a serene still life. I try to search out the most telling and revelatory aspects of my subjects, always pushing the limits of the descriptive power of watercolor. Although my work is characterized by a strong sense of realism, I have a reverence for the poetic quality of watercolor, and believe that the medium applied wet into wet has a spontaneous life of its own—an exuberance that reflects nature most powerfully. ~ Sally Robertson