Roberto Quintana WFA, has been painting professionally since 1980. Working predominantly by commission as a conceptual-environmental artist, Roberto designs and executes site-specific architectural installations, ornamental and decorative motifs, finishes, and trompe l'oeil murals for private and commercial clients throughout the western United States.
His projects include large-scale theme and environmental artworks for the motion picture and entertainment industries, site-specific works for Las Vegas casinos, and mural installations in nightclubs and restaurants for pop stars and local celebrities. He has executed original works for churches, hotels, resorts, hospitals, and other public facilities, as well as decorative and period pieces for private homes and gardens.
His projects include large-scale theme and environmental artworks for the motion picture and entertainment industries, site-specific works for Las Vegas casinos, and mural installations in nightclubs and restaurants for pop stars and local celebrities. He has executed original works for churches, hotels, resorts, hospitals, and other public facilities, as well as decorative and period pieces for private homes and gardens.
Health Services. (1974-1984)
Prior to my career as a mural painter and artist, I worked as a health services professional in Granada Hills, Pacoima, San Fernando, the mid-Valley and the L.A. area, including the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks and the Serra Memorial Hospital Emergency and Trauma Center in Pacoima. As a certified Respiratory Therapist I also taught CPR instructors for the American Red Cross.
While my work as a respiratory therapist and hyperbaric technician was highly rewarding, my desire to pursue a career which could contribute to people’s psycho-social and cultural health needs by uplifting their environments as an artist led me to retire from the medical health-care profession, and pick up a brush.
I began painting in 1978...
but I didn't start working seriously as a muralist until 1980. Since then, I have worked full-time as a free-lance artist, decorative painter, and muralist. During the early 1980's I worked for several graphic-design companies designing and painting logos, graphics, and supergraphics for commercial developers, restaurants, and sports facilities.
Within a few years, I began working with a regional design and development company, Grand American Fair, traveling the western United States (Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, Nevada, California), designing and painting murals for restaurants and pubs. This allowed me to work with, and learn from, a wide variety of local and international artists, doing carnival- and circus-style illustrations and fancy lettering, poster and billboard illustration and painting, and restoration of props, antiques, and objets d'art. In addition to sign-painting, I learned gilding and gold-leaf, and painted faux finishes (including marbleizing, wood-graining, fantasy finishes, glazing, staining, and antiquing). Working 'on the road' also offered me many opportunities to develop my landscape and portrait painting.
In 1984, I began working on large-scale fine-art mural projects for public spaces and private estates. During this time, I began exploring classic oil-painting techniques, tile-painting and mosaic design, and art-glass painting and etching for signage and stained-glass windows.
Since then I have continued to freelance as an environmental artist, muralist, and decorative painter. I have worked with commercial studios, painting large-scale movie posters, album covers, and billboards for outdoor display; and with scenic and display studios doing set painting: backdrops, sky-drops, and dioramas. I also continue to accept commissions for mural projects for hotels, casinos, nightclubs, restaurants, and churches, ranging from small single-wall projects to complete estates.
After the turn of the century I have also been working on large-scale outdoor mural projects painting totems and mascots for private and public schools throughout Southern California.
Philosophy and Approach
Every commissioned art project has its own special qualities, attributes, and requirements. Therefore, I prefer to approach each project with an open attitude about style, content, and theme. I assess the site and the site’s usage, the scale of the proposed project, and the general environment, together with the needs and expectations of not only the client but also, whenever possible, the community being served by the art piece. The results of assessing these parameters suggests images, stories, and visual narratives that begin the creative process and serve as the foundation for the development and research phase of designing the artwork. This design process culminates with a finished, to scale rendering of the proposed artwork, from which scaled ‘cartoons’ are made for transferring the layout to the walls surface, from which the full-scale art work can be executed on site, or in studio as required.
My tendency is to use bright, saturated colors in opposition to the muted tones and textures of both real and illusory architectural elements, along with the manipulation of scale and perspective in order to create an aesthetic sense of emotional and visual depth. My creative interests lie in philosophy, psychology, and the sciences… as expressed through the narratives of depth-psychology, mythology, sur-real and magical realism, illusions, and visual-poetry and puns. Whenever appropriate and fitting, I like to incorporate a playful sense of whimsy, and humor into my art-projects.
Documentation is an integral part of all public art projects. I will thoroughly document all phases with detailed photographs and written documentation that will assist in the future care and preservation of the mural/artwork.
Disciplines
Through my studio, Art & Soul Productions, established in 1980, I have created a fully outfitted professional painting studio, located in Altadena–Pasadena, California. I have the resources and experience needed to successfully execute any painted art project. I bring strong organizational and problem-solving skills to all of my projects. My abilities and experience as a painter and muralist, enhanced by my entrepreneurial skills, give me an understanding of the requirements necessary for a successful completion of a community art project of any scale, ensuring compliance with budget and schedule requirements as well as a sensitivity to the artistic skills and judgment necessary to execute site-specific and environmental artworks, with a deep appreciation and respect for the painters’ craft and the artisan’s materials and disciplines.
Media
Graphite, charcoal, pastels, gouache, tempera and water-color, acrylics, casein, encaustics, oils, enamels, glazes, glass painting, fired glazes, tile and mosaic tesserae, silicates, stains, buon fresco and fresco secco.
Fine Art
Some of my earliest memories are of the pungent smells of the eucalyptus trees in the dry river-washes of the Coachella Valley, and the loud, incessant, electric-buzzing of the locusts' humming, thick in the hot, still aromatic air–the relentless heat of the afternoon sun rising like shimmering waves off the red and ochre earth and the sage-scorched dunes. I can remember the blanched-yellow sky of noon, with the fire-ants scrambling for cover. I remember the blazing red, magenta-orange light of the sunsets; the purple-grey-green skies of dusk, with the coyotes calling in the dark-blue hills; and I can recall the silver-indigo cloak of night reaching out beyond the Milky Way, with the echo of a train's whistle floating far off across the lonely, timeless dream of night.
My first paintings were landscapes of the palisades, and of the Santa Ynez peninsula. Throughout these many years of craft building, I have always returned to the landscape painting for renewal and rest. As my artistic sensitivity matures, I have come to realize that the contours of the figure-study, the light in the still-life arrangement, and the textures in an abstract-composition are all echoes of the landscape: Coyotes calling to the dark-blue hills... where the spirit of the sky and the foundations of the earth come together to dance in the light.
Over the past thirty-plus years of my professional painting career, I have continued to develop and refine a body of work as a fine-artist and painter; some of these works are now available to the public through limited gallery exhibitions and through my website. -RQ
Prior to my career as a mural painter and artist, I worked as a health services professional in Granada Hills, Pacoima, San Fernando, the mid-Valley and the L.A. area, including the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks and the Serra Memorial Hospital Emergency and Trauma Center in Pacoima. As a certified Respiratory Therapist I also taught CPR instructors for the American Red Cross.
While my work as a respiratory therapist and hyperbaric technician was highly rewarding, my desire to pursue a career which could contribute to people’s psycho-social and cultural health needs by uplifting their environments as an artist led me to retire from the medical health-care profession, and pick up a brush.
I began painting in 1978...
but I didn't start working seriously as a muralist until 1980. Since then, I have worked full-time as a free-lance artist, decorative painter, and muralist. During the early 1980's I worked for several graphic-design companies designing and painting logos, graphics, and supergraphics for commercial developers, restaurants, and sports facilities.
Within a few years, I began working with a regional design and development company, Grand American Fair, traveling the western United States (Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, Nevada, California), designing and painting murals for restaurants and pubs. This allowed me to work with, and learn from, a wide variety of local and international artists, doing carnival- and circus-style illustrations and fancy lettering, poster and billboard illustration and painting, and restoration of props, antiques, and objets d'art. In addition to sign-painting, I learned gilding and gold-leaf, and painted faux finishes (including marbleizing, wood-graining, fantasy finishes, glazing, staining, and antiquing). Working 'on the road' also offered me many opportunities to develop my landscape and portrait painting.
In 1984, I began working on large-scale fine-art mural projects for public spaces and private estates. During this time, I began exploring classic oil-painting techniques, tile-painting and mosaic design, and art-glass painting and etching for signage and stained-glass windows.
Since then I have continued to freelance as an environmental artist, muralist, and decorative painter. I have worked with commercial studios, painting large-scale movie posters, album covers, and billboards for outdoor display; and with scenic and display studios doing set painting: backdrops, sky-drops, and dioramas. I also continue to accept commissions for mural projects for hotels, casinos, nightclubs, restaurants, and churches, ranging from small single-wall projects to complete estates.
After the turn of the century I have also been working on large-scale outdoor mural projects painting totems and mascots for private and public schools throughout Southern California.
Philosophy and Approach
Every commissioned art project has its own special qualities, attributes, and requirements. Therefore, I prefer to approach each project with an open attitude about style, content, and theme. I assess the site and the site’s usage, the scale of the proposed project, and the general environment, together with the needs and expectations of not only the client but also, whenever possible, the community being served by the art piece. The results of assessing these parameters suggests images, stories, and visual narratives that begin the creative process and serve as the foundation for the development and research phase of designing the artwork. This design process culminates with a finished, to scale rendering of the proposed artwork, from which scaled ‘cartoons’ are made for transferring the layout to the walls surface, from which the full-scale art work can be executed on site, or in studio as required.
My tendency is to use bright, saturated colors in opposition to the muted tones and textures of both real and illusory architectural elements, along with the manipulation of scale and perspective in order to create an aesthetic sense of emotional and visual depth. My creative interests lie in philosophy, psychology, and the sciences… as expressed through the narratives of depth-psychology, mythology, sur-real and magical realism, illusions, and visual-poetry and puns. Whenever appropriate and fitting, I like to incorporate a playful sense of whimsy, and humor into my art-projects.
Documentation is an integral part of all public art projects. I will thoroughly document all phases with detailed photographs and written documentation that will assist in the future care and preservation of the mural/artwork.
Disciplines
Through my studio, Art & Soul Productions, established in 1980, I have created a fully outfitted professional painting studio, located in Altadena–Pasadena, California. I have the resources and experience needed to successfully execute any painted art project. I bring strong organizational and problem-solving skills to all of my projects. My abilities and experience as a painter and muralist, enhanced by my entrepreneurial skills, give me an understanding of the requirements necessary for a successful completion of a community art project of any scale, ensuring compliance with budget and schedule requirements as well as a sensitivity to the artistic skills and judgment necessary to execute site-specific and environmental artworks, with a deep appreciation and respect for the painters’ craft and the artisan’s materials and disciplines.
Media
Graphite, charcoal, pastels, gouache, tempera and water-color, acrylics, casein, encaustics, oils, enamels, glazes, glass painting, fired glazes, tile and mosaic tesserae, silicates, stains, buon fresco and fresco secco.
Fine Art
Some of my earliest memories are of the pungent smells of the eucalyptus trees in the dry river-washes of the Coachella Valley, and the loud, incessant, electric-buzzing of the locusts' humming, thick in the hot, still aromatic air–the relentless heat of the afternoon sun rising like shimmering waves off the red and ochre earth and the sage-scorched dunes. I can remember the blanched-yellow sky of noon, with the fire-ants scrambling for cover. I remember the blazing red, magenta-orange light of the sunsets; the purple-grey-green skies of dusk, with the coyotes calling in the dark-blue hills; and I can recall the silver-indigo cloak of night reaching out beyond the Milky Way, with the echo of a train's whistle floating far off across the lonely, timeless dream of night.
My first paintings were landscapes of the palisades, and of the Santa Ynez peninsula. Throughout these many years of craft building, I have always returned to the landscape painting for renewal and rest. As my artistic sensitivity matures, I have come to realize that the contours of the figure-study, the light in the still-life arrangement, and the textures in an abstract-composition are all echoes of the landscape: Coyotes calling to the dark-blue hills... where the spirit of the sky and the foundations of the earth come together to dance in the light.
Over the past thirty-plus years of my professional painting career, I have continued to develop and refine a body of work as a fine-artist and painter; some of these works are now available to the public through limited gallery exhibitions and through my website. -RQ
Roberto Quintana de Foster resides and paints out of his home studio,
in the beautiful foothills of Alta-Pasadena, California...
as he continues to miss his beloved wife
Susan Foster de Quintana.
March 10th, 1950 - August 2nd, 2020
Susan My Beloved,
Farewell
On a forgotten journey
to somewhere once
a long time ago
I found myself
distracted by a beautiful
wildflower, bright and true,
growing amid the roses.
I came to you
down by the river
like a perfect fool
as Parsifal to Blanchefleur.
Your scent filled my senses
and I became drunk with you!
And dreamed…
The Drunkards’ Dream
of hearth and home
and contentment.
My cup overflowing
as you poured your love into me.
Your love transformed me.
Transformed my World.
Transformed my Universe.
My Forever Love.
My all. My ally.
My Wild Iris
Mi Corazon.
...But now the banquet is over
the courtyard stands empty
the drawbridge withdrawn.
The Grail Castle has vanished!
Now I know the treachery
of the lost precious.
The bewilderment of Parsifal
abandoned and lost
in a wilderness of pain and sorrow.
Now I know the despair of Rumi
at the murder and loss
of Shams of Tabriz.
Queen of my heart
My Forever Love.
My Perfect, Perfect Love.
I miss you so much…
Without you
I am like a speck of dust
blown away
in the breeze...
