"I think of my artworks as acts of investigation, and the imagery often suggests contemplation. I utilize a realist approach — and often the conventions of the still life—to explore relationships between images of concrete objects and the symbolic, between what can be regarded as material in a drawing or painting and the inference of something mysterious. I’m interested in the tension between significations of the present and the residue of the past. Over the past decade, my work has evolved toward the exploration of the referential nature of simple objects and figurative elements (especially the human hand) placed in the context of imagined art history sites or an allegorical composition. Some works reference Renaissance or religious subjects but re-imagined in a modern, secular arena of skepticism and altered consciousness." –© R. Bibler My drawings and paintings exhibit a fascination with the philosophical tension between imagery that is represented as material and that which suggests something symbolic or spiritual, and between significations of the present and the residue of the past. The compositions feature an interest in the forms and details of human anatomy combined with ordinary found objects, especially in relation to glass, water, fabric, and cast shadows. These are arranged often with some surrealist spatial dislocation or narrative whimsy to become a still life about time, or a mythological art history event, or an imaginary “film still” about perception and consciousness. The traditional Renaissance “window” space of pictorial illusionism fascinates me, and my work has often referred to it. The visual properties and suggestive symbology of glass make windows and glassware a recurrent subject. Renaissance allusions or visual “quotations” are a frequent motif, presented ironically, symbolically, or paradoxically “in a post-modern context,” as one critic put it discussing my drawings. Renaissance references and homages have figured in a small series of works depicting fanciful journeys to an imagined “sacred” art historical site. My work has also been influenced by movies, by great film directors. The juxtaposition of objects in a still life can evoke an implicit narrative potential just as we see in classical film editing. We are compelled to look for meaningful relationships between things; it’s an associational process fundamentally embedded in the cognitive mechanisms of the mind. I especially enjoy the artificial world of Hollywood classical cinema from the 1930s and 40s and its kinship to Italian and Northern Renaissance art production–– two relatively brief art historical periods similar in the astonishing output that emerged from the self-enclosed worlds of studios and workshops employing artists and anonymous craftsmen. Whether classic movies or murals and frescoes, these studios produced monumental representational and narrative works that were expressive, meticulously crafted, stylized, and poetic—rich in effects of lighting and decor and potentially abundant in meaning. I have exhibited artwork professionally since 1974, participating in solo and group exhibitions. I was a member of the Blackfish Gallery in Portland for eight years and was represented for several years in Seattle by the Kurt Lidtke Gallery and then by the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery in Salem. I was a finalist for the 2015 Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards. My drawings and paintings are held in several collections, including the Bonneville Power Administration, the City of Portland Visual Chronicle Collection, The Frederick and Lucy Herman Foundation Collection of Drawings at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, the Home Builders Institute in Washington, DC, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, and the State of Oregon Historical Properties, and several college and university collections. My work is in private collections in the Pacific Northwest, California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. I taught studio art and film studies at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon for 30 years, retiring in 2003. With my colleague Leonard Held, Ph.D., I also helped to bring classic American, contemporary, and international films to the Salem public for 40 years as co-coordinator of the weekly Wednesday Evening Film Series.– Robert Bibler EDUCATION 1979-80 Postgraduate study: cinema theory, criticism, and history. University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon1973 MFA in Art. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts1971 BFA in Painting. University of Washington, Seattle, WashingtonStudied under Michael Dailey, Chuck Close, Norman Lundin, Alden Mason, Robert C. Jones, Bill Ritchie, and Hui-Ming Wang