ROBERT L. MARSHALL
Marshall, Robert "Bob" Leroy (1944-), of Springville, Utah, is an artist who once played football for Brigham Young University. Born in Mesquite, Nevada, this creative painter, filmmaker, and educator has been a member of the BYU art faculty since 1969. Marshall, once known as a watercolorist primarily, is now widely recognized for his large oils in series; for his fine work as an arts patron (Springville Museum of Art, etc.), teacher, and administrator (chair, Department of Art, BYU); and for his highly professional skills and resulting works in documentary film (C. C. A. Christensen [q.v.], etc.). A graduate of BYU (B.A., 1966; M.A., 1968), Bob Marshall is the winner of numerous awards for his artistic accomplishments. He is best known for his oil of intimate views of Utah's wetlands. (b. December 5)
Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. ARTISTS OF UTAH. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999: 171.
Robert Marshall has been a member of the Visual Arts faculty at Brigham Young University since 1969. He teaches painting. He served as chair of the department for twelve years. Robert has had over 30 major solo and many group exhibitions throughout the United States and is considered one of the premier contemporary landscape painters in the state of Utah. His work is represented nationally through Gremillion and Co. in Houston, Texas. A dedicated teacher, Robert has recently been honored with the University’s prestigious Karl G. Maiser Research and Creative Arts Award and the College of Fine Arts and Communication Annual award for Excellence in Creativity.
The Utah landscape has provided inspiration for my work since moving to the state in 1969. The interest, however, has not been with the spectacular, panoramic vistas so soften portrayed but rather with the intimate wetland areas where one finds solitary fulfillment through private dialogue with the patterns, colors and textures that usually go unnoticed.
These are the inner landscapes of the heart, the landscapes that include the self as an active participant, the landscapes that connect us back to ourselves. Nature is more complex, illusive, and unpredictable than any abstraction. It is continuously transformed by light, and translated, through individual eyes, to our ways of knowing. Certainty is confirmed through our involvement with the ambiguities. I believe this is at the heart of my work. The response to this work continues to confirm its capacity to engage people on multiple levels. The aesthetic is compelling without confusion; understandable and yet intriguing, offering immediate, as well as sustained, interest in the image, the process and the formal order.
