For me, painting is abstract. The idea itself is abstract. I make paintings that can be easily named; that is, the viewer knows what the content is. I am interested in showing the structures and forms (abstractions) within those parts of nature that I am continually drawn to. These oil paintings--my first after a twenty-five year hiatus--are fleshed out versions of earlier concerns. Continuity is not only important to me, it is unavoidable. The agitated frenzy of nature itself barely hides the violence and hope. Though contradictory, both are also very attractive.

My paintings communicate a state of controlled chaos as I combine two divergent forces and approaches: realism and abstract expression. Through a proficient handling of light, a mastery of images, and a skillful mark-making method, the paintings confer an illusion of reality on something that’s not real. The end result occupies a space between magic and illusion rooted in the American realist tradition. My painting philosophy is art is magic, and the magic is illusion.

Robert Sherer grew up in a classic American family during the 1960s and 70s. His father was in the aircraft/aerospace industry and his mother was frequently ‘Homemaker of the Year’. Because his youth most closely resembles the illustrations of camping and scouting books of the era, Sherer derives his autobiographical artworks from such visual resources.

As a painter my engagement with the medium of photography is rudimentary. After all, the scanograph is laughably simplistic, the twenty-first-century equivalent of the photogram. If the optical scanner holds my attention, it is because it promises a pure, straightforward visibility. It simply registers all visual data, without bias; one is tempted to say that it sees as if it cannot be seen. Of course, this does not mean that the scanner produces evidence of the spectacle played out before it.