Florals:

      A flower in bloom represents youth in all of its innocence, shyness, tenderness, and beauty, as well as its fear, self-pride, pretentiousness, and envy.

Landscapes:

      Landscapes add atmosphere to your home or office environment. They lend a sense of escape from daily life. To own a landscape painting that you really enjoy is like taking a vacation every time you gaze into it. I enjoy doing landscapes in watercolor because the medium lends itself well to impressionistic atmospheric effects. The landscapes that you will see on the web sight are primarily watercolor. I usually prefer the oil medium when it comes to depicting the figure in space. I am currently working on a new series of works of Italian olive harvesting, and pheasant hunters from the Tuscan countryside. That series will be in oil, for example. I enjoy doing sculptural depictions and architectural drawings in pen and ink. The fine cross-hatching involved lends a strong feeling of structure and balance to those works.

Artist Statement:

      I believe that art is a visual language that can be described as being “spoken” visually. There is a certain punctuation, grammar, and syntax to line, form, composition, and color. There are many different dialects within the language of art which have evolved over the course of thousands of years.
       I believe that truly great art is created not by the emotion “put into” a work nor the emotion that is felt by the artist while creating the work, but the artist’s ability to translate that emotion competently into a universal visual language.
       I believe that technical skill is still an important element in art. The more realistic an artist paints, the easier it is for his/her audience to understand his/her disposition. I believe that the greatest role of the artist is to “reach out” and inspire others in society. Therefore, I believe that expression is limited by poor technique, which tends to obscure and conceal, largely involuntarily, what the artist is trying to express. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that the artist should, ideally, not be misunderstood, even if he/she does sit on the outskirts of society looking in. I believe that the capacity for artistic expression is an individualized evolution that begins in early childhood, usually spawned from a felt need to escape or become self aware. Some individuals develop it and cultivate it, while others do not. I believe that everybody possesses this capacity to one degree or another. Therefore, I believe that everyone is capable of appreciating art and its role in society.

Artist’s Bio:

       Rob Johnston, 23, of Gadsden, Alabama, has been working, studying, and traveling between Vence, France, and Florence, Italy, for the past four years. For Three years in a row, Rob was awarded the Nall Foundation Scholarship to Study with artist Nall in the south of France and to study at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy.
      During his travels, Rob has encountered internationally renowned artists such as Jacob Collins, Sosno, Arman, Claudio Bravo, David Hockney, John Michael Angel, and Joseph Sheppard. Rob has recently been nominated to exhibit in the Firenze Biennale dell'Arte Contemporanea Internazionale 2005 in Florence, Italy. More than 800 international artists participate in the event as it is held every two years. If he is accepted, he will be the youngest artist ever to exhibit at the Biennale. 
      Rob Johnston is under the patronship of Mario Luca Giusti, Petreich, of Florence, Italy. Mr. Giusti has a private collection of more than eighteen portraits by the young artist including a portrait of Eugenio Montale, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.
     Rob's work has been presented in galleries and private collections in the southeastern United States, France, and Italy. Granted a God-given talent since birth for the visual arts, Rob is described by his fans and critics as "a natural" and "one of the most-gifted artists of his generation."