Review

"Sprouted Onion," Watercolor.

Valda Robison

10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Images Art Gallery
7320 W. 80th St.
Overland Park, KS
913.232.7113

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday
Runs through: Feb. 13.

Artist's site: http://www.valdastudio.com
Gallery site: http://www.imagesartgallery.org

The best part of this gig, bar none, is getting to hang out with artists. The second-best, also without question, has to be the collection of "wow" moments built up over more than a year of seeing so many shows.

For Valda Robison's part of the current group show at Images Art Gallery, it was the sight of light passing through the delicate, papery skin of a yellow onion that has passed its expiration date and begun to put forth scallions.

Sprouted Onion (pictured above) is no photograph, though. It's an incredibly realistic watercolor painting, part of a still-life-intensive show that also includes Robison's light-saturated drawings.

The attraction of the still life is twofold: the play of illumination on the objects being painted, and the elevation of the ordinary to the realm of that which merits long viewing and invites contemplation. Robison clearly understands (and, more than that, embraces) both aspects.

There is such drama in even the ordinary — with the interplay of light and dark, of the variety of textures and of form — that I am never without inspiration, Robison writes. I strive to capture not only a realistic interpretation with my art, but also that higher spiritual quality that is inherent in all God’s creation.

In a statement on her Web site, she digs even deeper into the idea of light as a transformative agent {a concept, both literal and figurative, which at the heart of her faith):

[M]ost of all, I marvel at the way sunlight plays on ordinary objects and transforms them to a reflection of the Creator. I strive to capture that Divine nature in my art.

Robison's concrete application of that philosophy is largely the result of instruction by artists and teachers she has never met in person.

I began drawing and painting when near retirement age, she writes. While not having any formal art instruction, I like to say that I attended the “Library School of Art” — checking out all the wonderful how-to books from the library, and studying the works of accomplished artists.

There's much worth studying in Robison's work as well ... not only in the techniques she uses to produce the visual "wow" moments, but also in her attitude that anything, no matter how seemingly mundane, can be redeemed by nothing more than a touch of light.

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