Archive » July 27, 2007

The images represent the American cultural icons personal to the artist. Like all forms of high art, they come from a place inside the artist, an inspirational source inherent in the creative instinct of the painter.

Santa Barbara’s Mitchell Robles submitted a pony that embodies everything he’s come to know of himself, his heritage and Santa Barbara’s rich Chumash culture present in our Painted Cave and other local monuments. Robles is an 11^th-generation Santa Barbarian with Chumash ancestry running through his father’s side of the family. Adorned with the petroglyphs of Southern California’s Native Americans and the vibrant colors of a Pacific sunset, his pony carries the markings of a Southwest that exists as relic – one that symbolizes the Native culture that once populated California’s landscape.

“I think it’s just really deep down inside of me. It had been hidden and it’s coming out,” Robles said of his inspiration to paint. “It’s hard to explain. But growing up, going to Painted Cave when I was nine-years old… I guess it all kind of lead up to this point where I’m at right now.”

That point finds Robles on display at The International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park through September 9. The path that’s taken him here flowed through an introduction to painting abstract landscapes following a trip to an interior designer’s home in Ventura.

“I went over there and saw all these paintings. So I saw this one painting that I really liked, this abstract painting,” Robles said. “I bought the painting and said I’m gonna try doing that abstract thing, you know, and went out and bought oils and brushes and canvases and all that and started flowing colors and blending colors and that’s how it all got started.”

It took a short five years before Robles had his first gallery exhibit and people took notice. Mia Shaw Gale, now a friend of Robles, recognized him from a news article when she saw him at a local copy shop and struck up a conversation with him around 1995.

She was immediately drawn to the color and power of Robles’ Native American imagery.

“It’s as if his paintings were coming straight through his blood or his genes. I look at them and I immediately see the connections,” she said. “There’s really something soulful in his landscapes.”

After a trip to Canyon de Shay and Monument Valley where Robles amassed a collection of rock-art photos, he had his first inspiration to add a touch of his native history to his work.

“I decided why not try to put some petroglyphs on top of one of my abstract paintings because my abstract painting just looked kind of like a typical abstract painting,” he said. “So I started to draw the images over the abstract painting and that’s how I got started with newspaper, rock and ancient images.”

Unleashing his inherent cultural connection to the ancient art of an indigenous people, Robles tapped a creative resource that resonated with one of his collectors, Betty Penn.

“They kind of reach out and grab every cell in my body so to speak and I sort of feel that his paintings aren’t just wallpaper, but they’re magical spiritual journeys,” she said. “ ‘Mirror of the Soul’ [Penn’s first Robles painting] is the focal point of my home. I sort of feel a protective and healing presence of that painting.”

Robles’ spiritual journey and unlocking of his creative spirit has lead him to gallery showings in Santa Fe, N.M., Scottsdale, Ariz. and Wyoming.

He’s now prepared to embark on a Chumash rock-art design for a surfboard statue that will be placed at Rincon Beach in Carpentaria, outlining the rules of etiquette for riding waves. Though the inspiration to paint only fully took hold some 20 years ago, Robles has expanded his horizons to painting Texas Longhorns and creating ceremonial war shirts complete with petroglyphs, porcupine quills and horse hair. As the opportunities present themselves, Robles’ creative spirit responds and he lets it carry him.

“I’m just kind of letting it flow because every two months something else comes up,” he said.