Lor Kotan Roybal

In 2004, Elizabeth Cook-Romero, wrote in a Pasatiempo profile:

“At first glance, Lor Roybal’s paintings appear to be modernist. Patches of blue and orange form a face, while pink and yellow shapes jostle each other to suggest a distant mountain range. But theories about color and form do not inspire Roybal. She paints as a way to explore an internal realm. For her, painting is a ‘medicine wheel,’ the source of balance in her life.”

Lor Kotan Roybal was born in 1949, in the shadow of “The Hermit’s Peak,” outside the small village of Beulah in Northern New Mexico. Her artistic vision was shaped by this vast, raw land along with the unique traditions and folk lore of New Mexico. Roybal’s work as an artist both issues from and returns back to her experiences here. She now resides in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Roybal’s path to becoming an artist unfolded over time. As a young woman, she sketched and casually painted for many years and eventually found herself studying printmaking. Then, in 1980, Roybal had a blackout experience which affected her entire nervous system. Royal regards the trauma as a breakthrough rebirth experience. After several months of recovery, she began painting in earnest. Her work brimmed with sincerity and depth as she completed unfinished works that had languished for years, and created new works full of warmth and color.

Roybal felt herself compelled to be an artist and she took the message to heart. By 1982, she was exhibiting at galleries in and around Santa Fe. She exhibited at the Jameson Galleries, established by Margaret Jameson, and in 1982, her work was chosen for a museum show, “Mexico – New Mexico, A Spirit Shared”, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe. Over the years, she has exhibited throughout her native New Mexico. She showed for over 15 years at the annual Spanish Market in Santa Fe.

Roybal’s paintings are colorful and sincere, and yet always share in her particular and often subliminal imaginings: characters from her fancy often make their way into frame, enlivening her work and accompanying her on her journey. The colors and composition of her paintings are solid and earthbound as she renders her personal mythology in acrylic and occasionally oil. Roybal’s work ultimately extends beyond the bounds of her personal history and the land that raised her—one cannot help but find a conversation that her painting participates in with artists of modern masterworks such as Pablo Picasso, Max Weber, and Diego Rivera.

Lor Roybal’s work is in many private collections and the Museum of Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.