Rob Kaz

About the Artist

Potent colors and engaging light are vessels I hope will bring you into the atmosphere of my paintings and leave your spirit wanting to stay. Quite simply, I want you to long to be in the painting, to take comfort and smile with a sense of whimsy, a sentiment in my paintings that can be contributed to my influential background in professional studio animation and video game art.

“I approach each painting with a conscious sense of balance between earth and water - most of my paintings have water even if its existence is only implied. I find natural beauty and a soothing logic in water that meets land that I hope relates as emotions, even if not parallel to my own.“

“The signature is always the most complicated part of any painting because I find it extremely difficult to ever call a painting complete. But if you view my painting and find yourself there leaned against a palm on the shore while your mind authors a light rain or a curious butterfly taking flight, then I suppose a painting is never quite complete."

Following graduation from UCF, Rob began working for a number of small animation studios. Because Disney had recently relocated their animation studios to California and left many animators in Central Florida who chose not to uproot, Rob found himself working "alongside quite possibly the most talented artists I've ever known right there in those small studios." Their influence was invaluable.

While at the studios, Rob had the opportunity to work in many areas of film. In particular, the time spent in character creation and environments heavily influenced his painting style.

For some time, Rob worked as a character artist for Electronic Arts (EA Tiburon) creating human likenesses in games such as Madden and NCAA football.  

When Rob paints, he imagines places he'd rather be and he imagines friends along the way. Those two categories, Places I'd Rather Be and Friends Along the Way, occurred naturally as Rob began building a body of work. In most cases, his paintings easily fall into one or the other (and sometimes both).  

When his last contract ended with EA, Rob took a leap of faith and began painting full-time. Today, Rob's work is a mirror of his background in animation and video game art.