Roundtable Discussion w/ Artist Sam Robertson

Join the CPS community for a lively panel discussion featuring artist Sam Robertson, whose first book The Illustrated Old Testament was published in 2022 with 11:11 Press.  Robertson's work has been featured in the Star Tribune, MPLSart.com, Eau Claire's Volume One, MinnPost, Berfrois, and on Wisconsin Public Radio. 

The event is open to the public. Doors open at 4:00 pm. The roundtable will be run from 4:30-6 pm and be followed by a reception. Stay around after to continue the conversation. 

Artist Statement: 

I paint scenes depicting flawed but complex characters navigating murky spaces unique to western, consumerist culture, and I use humor as the tool to help enable these encounters between the people and their worlds. Those I portray are surrounded by modern technologies and dilemmas, and I seek to humanize them within the situations I create. On the surface, I use comedy, vibrant colors, and bold linework to draw the viewer in, but I aim to charge each painting with a vitality deeper and more elemental to our experiences in the 21st century. I explore the expansive and dynamic human spirit and how it clashes against our self destructive appetites for exploiting each other and pillaging the natural world.

I’m continuing the exploration of these themes with my upcoming podcast “Birth of a Salesman” where I’ll wade deep into my own American Dream, becoming a door to door salesman selling my Old Testament. The goal in the story and in real life is to sell 100,000 copies, one of which to the Pope himself, and to sell all the original 257 paintings to the Vatican for one million dollars. It’s reigniting my love of storytelling and performance art, passions I’ve set aside for eight years while I brought this book to life. 

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Panelists include: Andrew J. Wilt (Publisher, 11:11 Press), Michael Gaudio (UMN, Art History), Rachel Trocchio (UMN, English), Dan Watkins (History, Baylor University), Jennifer Awes-Freeman (United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, UMN Art History), Carol Veldman Rudie (Museum of Russian Art).

This event is cosponsored by the UMN Department of English, the UMN Religious Studies Program, Anselm House, and 11:11 Press.

Please register for this event: https://z.umn.edu/SamRobertsonEvent.