BobcatArts

Painting, illustration and photography by Roberto Gato. Just a stray cat exploring the world. My photography is at cementsafari.tumblr.com. Contact me at BobcatArts at gmail dot com. ALWAYS open for commissions!

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Drawings from my trip to Ansbach, Germany.

Also a Space Castle drawn on my flight home.

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2003 Honda Shadow Spirit VT750 Engine Study 10x20 acrylic on canvas A lovingly done memorial painting of my late project motorcycle.

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Meteor Strike

10x30x2 acrylic on gallery wrap canvas. Painted all the way around. While I cannot stop the screaming of my shadows, I can destroy the very ground upon which they are cast. (I was in a bad place when I started this, really like how it came out).

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Carnegie in Strawberries 30x40 acrylic on canvas

A portrait of Carnegie who lives in what used to be the Melon bed in our front garden.

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MF DOOM 30x40 acrylic on canvas

I was introduced to DOOM’s music around 2005. It changed my world in several ways. 

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Southern Pygmy Shrew Smallest Mammal in Maryland “A shrew skull warms in a sun beam on the forest floor among the wildflowers.”

12x24 acrylic on canvas $1000

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Classic 40

16x20 acrylic on canvas. A gift to a dear old friend for his 40th birthday.  He is a scholar, writer, teacher and leader of games. I wanted to give him something ‘classy’ but honest and a table full of games, booze and snacks inspired by Renaissance still life art seemed just the thing.  Happy birthday, Professor. 

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Smoke Break, numb. 16x20 acrylic on canvas

I’ve taken to my motorcycles during my pandemic furlough, riding through an empty, urban world. It’s been a very challenging experience trying to navigate this kind of purgatory, helpless and watching civilization crumble around me. I went from terrified to numb overnight. Living in a dead world outside, dead inside but pretending I was alive. And then just as fast it suddenly changed again, and I’m back at work as if almost 100,000 killed never happened and I just have a little dainty mask and gloves to keep it from happening to me. It sucks. Everything sucks. And here we are.

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Old Gods, Hump Back Whale  16x20 acrylic on canvas Inspired by both my time in the Galapagos and St. Thomas, USVI. I love the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific, and the life they foster in shallow and deep waters. 

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ESSENTIAL

Inspired by the essential workers that keep our country going. Triptych 12x24 each. Acrylic on canvas. Don’t let them call you heroes. Have you seen what we do to heroes? We bury them. We mourn them. We call people heroes because we failed to protect them. Don’t ever let them call you a hero. That means they’ve given up on you and are willing to let you die. 

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Old Gods, Stray Dog. 16x20 acrylic on canvas.

Inspired by Guayaquil, Ecuador. I only ever actually saw one or two stray dogs there. The rolling hills and stacked houses made me think they still haunted the streets. 

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REMEMBER - shrine to stray cats. 30x40 acrylic on canvas Based on a tiny medieval shrine I saw carved in to a huge rock deep in Parc Eugene Chanlon in Orsay, France in what used to be a quarry. What an achingly beautiful little place hidden in the woods. 

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Saint Anxiety

16x20 acrylic on canvas It’s a painting of my anxiety, based on a Chinese water deer. I didn’t know they didn’t have horns until I already painted them. I’m okay with this. 

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ManekiNeko “Lucky Cat” 16x20 acrylic on canvas

I’ve always loved the Lucky Cat / Money Cat spotted in my favorite restaurants and shops. This may be the basis of a tattoo in the future. 

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Kyoto Aquarium 18x24 acrylic on canvas.

It’s a view of the main tank -which is at least 2 stories tall- viewed from the lowest level. 

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Two paintings from the Fushimi Inari Taishia shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Each 8x10 watercolor on paper

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Cardinal in snow. 30x40 acrylic on canvas. $400

Only the snow remembered the meeting of a cardinal and a hawk deep in the woods.