Bromoil is a combination of photography and painting — although not in the strict sense of the word. Each print begins as a photograph. The image is then bleached using copper sulfate, potassium bromide and potassium dichromate, leaving a specter of the image behind. It is then darkened with a lithographic ink that leaves no single image the same. Each print is as individual as a painting.

The process itself explores the nature of the image — by erasing it and bringing it back, it is a constant evaluation of completion — addition and subtraction, touching and removing the stroke. Roberts works by instinct, feeling around the edge of the reminiscence until a thin sliver comes to the fore. It is a pulling, a balance of positive and negative. And it is exactly that continual weighing that makes Roberts’ work so exquisite.

In a piece he calls, Left Hanging, a forsaken group of wire hangers dangle in an abandoned church. An umbra seems to reach beyond their boundaries, bleeding onto the crevices of the untended plaster, scratching down the wall on lapsed trails. The coat hooks fade out like water stains against the graying image. It is prose illustrated.

Roberts is working with a group of photographs of the wild mustangs. These uninhibited animals have allowed him into their sacred circle and he relishes every moment he’s spent with them.

Extracting a sopping wet paper embedded with a latent, nearly invisible image, Roberts lays it on his worktable, smoothing out the warp as much as possible with a sponge. “The water soaks into the photo in proportion to the lights and darks, so where I ink it, the water acts like wax in an etching,” he explains, pondering which brush he’ll start with, not thinking about standing alone in the Arrowhead Mountains, watching the wild horses and waiting for the right moment.

“I’m adamant to not do this in an objective way — all the books that are out about the Mustangs are just data — and all my images are about the mythology,” he says, choosing a rounded hogsfoot brush. “I’m trying to convey what it feels like to be out there; I’m not trying to capture anything the way a photojournalist would.”

On a tile, beside his wet 8 by 10-inch paper, he rolls out a swath of brownish black ink, then taps the brush in the ink and hits the latent image with granules of color, haltingly, rhythmically, walking the brush up and down the piece. Tiny dots of sepia adhere to the shadows and a grainy form begins to rise to the surface. A horse’s flank, one long head, a flowing mane. There’s more to the image, but it hasn’t emerged yet.

Roberts steps back and turns his head, observing the piece, listening to it.

Because he did take the photograph, he knows what’s supposed to be there … however, that doesn’t always come across in the finished piece. In this case he photographed three mustangs, but only one is clear at this point.

Lifting the paper from his bench, he places it back in the warm bath for about 30 seconds. Some of the ink falls away in the water, but most of it remains. He takes a clean, uncharged brush and begins to tap away at the image. “This picks up the ink from the highlights and deposits it into the shadows, which clarifies the image,” he says. And although he says he’s picking up ink, it looks more like he’s hammering the ink into the picture.

“At a certain point I have to make a decision,” he says, standing back and evaluating the piece again. “I have to decide whether to keep going or to stop. I’m not trying to make it look like the photograph. I just keeping going until it feels right.”

He picks up the sponge and lightly circles the photo with it, barely touching the paper and, within moments, the image pops, and a second flank appears.

“Sometimes I like to deconstruct things,” Roberts says, “Sometimes it gets to the point of an abstract painting.”

Framed in the back room are two of those abstract pieces. Roberts uses a series of techniques that scrape away at an image or add sweeping textures of ink. He may add a tint of rose or aqua to come away with a piece that echoes the initial photographed composition, but is more akin to Roberts’ impressionistic response to the piece at hand.

“For me, capturing the photograph is part of it,” he says, picking up a wad of Saran Wrap and dabbing at the image, leaving a raw texture behind. “But I don’t come to the piece with a preconceived notion. I just want to leave the impression. Almost every photo has a story, but I’m letting the piece talk. I don’t want anything to interfere, whether it’s my feeling of being there or someone else saying it needs to look a certain way. I just want it to happen. I want to see where it’s going to go.”

Diane Krasnow, an art collector who owns eight pieces by Roberts, was drawn to his bromoils immediately.

“We bought a place in Whitefish and started collecting some of the regional work,” Krasnow says. “I was taken with the work the minute I laid eyes on it. And I love the way he’s captured the energy of the wild mustangs. That really excited me. I love the idea of going up in the wilderness and watching the horses in their natural surroundings.”

Krasnow, an artist herself, appreciates the amount of work that goes into each piece. “His technique is so unique, so painstaking; as a result it’s a piece of art, like a painting rather than a photograph,” she says. “I find his work very spiritual. I adore the pieces we have and I look forward to seeing his newest work every year. As a rule I don’t collect a single artist, but I am addicted to his work.”

Bromoil was once the favorite and beloved process of the pictorialists and salon exhibition photographers during the first half of the 20th century. The process came about at a time when photographers were trying to make their photographs more painterly. But today it is rarely seen because the process is so labor-intensive.

“I love that I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Roberts says opening an overhead cabinet. Like a cook searching for the right spice, he surveys its contents, finally coming away with a thick roll of brown tape. Ripping off a few inches he returns to the work, picking at the ink with the adhesive. Somewhere in the bromoil there is a third horse but it’s still not visible. “That’s nice. And it didn’t change the nature of it.”

Roberts loves the spontaneity of the process.

“Even with my prints, I like it to be really good, but there’s more to it than that. It has to feel right. And this piece has the potential to go abstract — that third horse — I may just take it out and call it Three Horses,” he says with an impish smile.

Picking up a small fitch-hair brush, Roberts continues to dance between the lights and darks. It’s an elegant step. A turn of the wrist. A dip of the head. Until both the artist and the work is near to exhaustion. The result is a lamenting inference — a secret ephemeral glimpse into the meaning of life.

Julie Gustafson, of the Gallatin River Gallery in Big Sky, is one of several Montana and Wyoming galleries that represent Roberts’ work.

“He’s so passionate about his work that it just spills over,” she says. “He is a gentle voice of poetry in this crazy world.”

So far, Gustafson has held two solo shows of his work and they’ve both been successful because they reach such a broad audience.

“I feel like he’s shooting pictures of a time past, and that aspect of his work really moves people,” Gustafson says. “The technique is an old technique and his images are really deep.”

Each of Roberts’ pieces are truly one of a kind; each bears his individual mark. Roberts only makes six editions of each image, but they vary from one to the next.

“It’s almost like he’s an old soul,” Gustafson says. “He’s one of the last bromoilists working today. He’s a purist and that’s what makes his work spiritual.”

Roberts also shows his work at Buffalo Trails Gallery, in Big Fork; Montana Trails Gallery, in Jackson Hole; Common Ground Gallery, in Red Lodge; as well as The Gallatin River Gallery, in Big Sky.BSJ