110 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {home & design} of Roland’s paintings. In a 2016 interview with art historian John Seed, Roland said, “I like the feeling of isolation, where the figures seem to be in their own worlds, sort of daydreaming.” Over the decades, the Picnic paintings have become larger and even more colorful. Working first in oils (and later in acrylic paints), the application is thick and expressive. All of his work encompasses strong geometric shapes, with tables, trees and figures arranged in such a way as to lead the eye to the horizon, which is often depicted in multi-colored patterns delineated by both horizontal and diagonal lines. Colors that one would not imagine placing together are, in his work, complementary and distinct. Roland’s color palette begins with one small area that he then extends and expands upon throughout the painting. There is an undeniable boldness to his work, created by the almost neonPHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: STUDIO SHOP GALLERY - ROLAND PETERSEN bright colors—especially cobalt blue—but it is offset by those solitary, faceless figures, rendered in a muscular, blocky manner, that creates a quiet, contemplative stillness. Stephanie Martin, director of Burlingame’s Studio Shop Gallery where Roland’s work has been shown for decades, says that people respond to the abundance of color in his paintings. “We almost always have something by Roland on display,” she says. “We call him our superstar.” Over the years, the gallery has had several retrospectives of his work, including one in May of this year. Stephanie says she enjoys showing Roland’s early work, in which he moved from Abstract Expressionism to Hard Edge Abstraction to his more representational Picnic Series. “For this retrospective, I really wanted to put together work from every decade. I wanted people to see the progression of his work from the ABOVE: (from top) Picnic with 13 Figures; Shades of Blue.
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