The More I know The More I Don't Know

Leaves, Birds & Bi-Planes

The Suspension Bridge by Isambard Kingdom Brunel

All Along The Watchtower

And before you know it!

High Speed Reflection

Trip the Light Fantastic

Robert Yarber is best known for his expressionistic paintings of stubby cartoon figures floating or falling through the night sky over garishly illuminated urban skylines. At once comic and poignant, they seem to suggest out-of-body-states: the ecstasy of love, the freedom of disembodied spirit, the nightmare of free fall. His current works pursue similar themes, but his technique has changed. Yarber employs digitally manipulated imagery applied by ink jet to canvas which he then paints on. While they are still paintings, their photographic basis gives them a disquietingly heightened sense of reality that propels them from the realm of dream into a strange netherworld between artifice and actuality.

With these works, Yarber has also widened his scope of references to make them more suitable to a world obsessed with alien abduction, apocalyptic prophecy and satanic ritual abuse. Yarber creates a domain where Christian allegories merge with sci-fi paranoia, and the melding of lovers' bodies is as likely to symbolize body snatching as romantic ardor.

Thus, for instance, Resurrection takes place in a cemetery at night. Light from a hidden source silhouettes three figures--a man pulled in two directions by a crimson devil and an angel with enormous outstretched wings. The Great Nearness presents a sylvan setting worthy of Winslow Homer. Here, under the brilliant midday sun, a floating woman draws a man upward above a rural pond. A number of works take place in fantastic, gilded baroque rooms. In The Two Body Problem, a pair of figures joined at the head float in a mirrored room before the pale yellow illumination of a chandelier. Music Room takes place in a Victorian parlor. The central focus is an amorphous form which may be a pair of entwined lovers glowing on a table in front of a grand piano.

Light emerges as a major player in these paintings, setting the mood and suggesting the presence of otherwise invisible forces. Sometimes the scenes are drenched in the kitschy golden radiance of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Others are illuminated by light sources that suggest the flicker of unseen candles, an eerie radioactive glow, the orange haze of mercury vapor lights or the blinding explosion of a camera flash.

With these works Yarber builds on the intriguing vocabulary he had begun to construct in his expressionistic paintings. The change of format has allowed him to expand on the essential strangeness of his vision. His waking dreams unearth the irrational undercurrents of life in our millennial age.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group

The Moon & The Blue

War Of The Worlds

I didn't realize until the other day that 'War Of The Worlds' was first published in the the late 1890's. For H.G.Wells to have such vision in those times has boosted my opinion the great writer. I had already been deeply affected by the screen adaptation of 'The Time Machine' when I saw it on TV as a 7 year old (1969) living in Craig-Cefn-Parc, situated near the black mountains in South Wales. I guess that was my first deep encounter with science fiction that was to shape a large part of my vision. As we leap forward through the communication age and emergent behavior is upon us, I wonder what will be regarded as visionary when people look back at the 21st century.

Water falls

So I caught hold of his leg, he swung around and landed on top of the garage!

The North Sea

You don't say

The Aged

The thirst for knowledge knows no time. While we still have our thought processes active we continue to search only to be thwarted by the slow decay, if we're lucky enough to live a long life, of the human body.

Time stands still...

This blog has so far turned out to be a gallery of images (the majority of which have been taken by myself) that should really be posted on a photoblog page. Hohum, I'll fill these pages with more words when the moment takes me. Until then my friends.

The Yoot

A Shining Light?

With the potentially annoying recurrence of finding myself as being the eternal catalyst, I now proclaim myself to be a pioneer.

5 Days Lost In A Jay Haze

ten minutes past one am, friday night saturday morning.

Julian Temple lives over there...

Park in Space.

Jeeziz, some people are just plain stoopid.

Stone Cold Still

Mechanically Arranged Environments

To enhance your living experience

Arnolfini 2005

Day In The Park

So I thought, Yeah thas a good idea, I'll take my Alsatian puppy to the children's play park, leave it off a lead near the swings so it can trot nonchalantly along and that little girl can boot it on the head as she swoops down on her swing. Nowt queer as folk eh!

Dear In The Park

The hunter or the hunted

Made It