Robert Francis James paints small expressionist still lifes in oil on canvas and canvas board. His goal is to capture common household objects: foods, flowers, glassware, china, tools, and toys. Many of the objects Robert paints are antiques, suggesting a solid, simple, civil world. He spends his days seeking objects that evoke tranquility and domesticity, and paints them in a realistic fashion, while leaving them sketchy and broken, with raised, visible marks and small splatters and knife-scratches, reflecting how we perceive our world—as a mosaic. By applauding the plain and prosaic, Robert’s paintings ask the viewer to slow down, step back, stop doing and start looking—if only for a minute.