Eglise de Montjean (2007) Painting by Robert Lysiak

A native New Yorker, Robert Lysiak earned a Ph.D. in Middle English Language and Literature and taught medieval literature and linguistics in the English Department at Appalachian State University for 32 years. He has been painting in watercolor for 25 years. His work reflects his personal experience and range of interests. Having spent 32 years in Appalachia, his early work deals largely with the landscapes, machinery, animals, people, and life in the rural mountains. For the past two years he has been living and painting in the Loire Valley region of France where his subject matter has grown to include the cityscapes, landscapes and traditions of Old Europe.

This variety of life, urban and rural, old and new world, natural and mechanical is sometimes rough, sometimes lovely but always superlatively vibrant. Transparent watercolor is an ideal medium for capturing the local and impressionistic effects of light and color in these environments. While he enjoys using transparent watercolor pigment, he applies it in other than traditional loose washes. A colorist, he chooses to apply pure, clean color with little dilution, thereby managing more effective control of paint and drying time. He employs few white passages which tend to restrict surrounding areas to diluted tints. Extreme value differences are kept to a minimum in order to emphasize color and intensity contrasts. Form is also simplified as color variation is increased in order to maintain focus on the essential subject matter. The use of transparent pigment in this manner still allows light to reflect off the white paper, maintaining the luminous quality of watercolor but allowing richer, deeper, complex color at the same time. His work, while representational, tends towards abstracted shape with an emphasis on line and especially color.

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : 1943
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists