For Christine Blue Lamb Toubeau, the future allows artistic freedom.

Her large-scale works, on great big canvases, often deal with futuristic imagery and robots, alongside humans.

“I’ve always been interested in machinery. I think it’s part of the human creativity. I’ve always been interested in robots, in the future,” says Toubeau. “I think it allows artists a lot of freedom.” Toubeau’s voice bubbles with excitement at the prospect of asking a child to paint the future or draw creatures that live on Mars. “You could do anything. I love that idea, and I thought the idea of robots coming into their strength was a wonderful way of showing human creativity. We will have them as part of business and will have them in our homes.”

The artist earned her MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 2004. There, in her first solo show, The Robot Next Door, she presented paintings of robots alongside humans, of creativity in action.

“I wanted it to be daily interactions with robots,” she says. “Sometimes they’re driving in cars, or toasting the future together, or playing cards, and others are more abstract.”

What isn’t abstract is the type of robot Christine uses across all her imagery. 

“DLR Research, of Germany,—an aeronautics research company in Germany, had come up with the most beautiful blue robot. I loved the way that robot looked. They are machines, and there’s no reason for them to look human,” says Christine, “but if they’re going to work around humans, I guess there’s a need for the aesthetic.” With the company’s permission, Christine has been using the blue, anthropomorphic robot, that tilts its head and moves its arms, for the past 15 years.

Initially, Toubeau painted her blue robots interacting with human females, who were often nude. “I wanted the humans to be vulnerable, wanted them to feel vulnerable next to the machine. We have to be careful. We can put things in place that can turn on us,” says the artist, adding, “I also think nude women are beautiful, and I wanted people to come across the room and see what my paintings are about, and it usually works. People are attracted to my paintings. They’re provocative.”

Christine’s more recent work depicts robots in more precarious situations. Lately, her robots are struggling with the ecological challenges humans will face down the road. In peril, they are surrounded by aqua greens and turquoise of the ocean.

“The robots were vulnerable. They are machines, and we cannot say these guys are going to be our way out in the future. It’s up to us humans,” says Toubeau. “The robots are graceful, floating and lying underwater, discarded. They’re like a tool. When it’s broken, you don’t fix it. You let it go.”

Toubeau’s images create a cinematic effect of a battle being fought, and lost, with multiple actions taking place in her paintings. Her four most recent paintings, three that are four feet and one that’s three feet, are painted so that, when hung together, “they look like they’re this one big ocean,” she says, “These current paintings show future humans partnering with robots to try to clean the terrain of our earth, whose environment needs help.”

“I believe artists are the truth tellers,” says Toubeau, who grew up in a family of artists. “They’re very intense people, both emotionally and where to put that emotion, but it does take patience, and it does take practice. You don’t just sit there and do something great the first time. Someone who’s an artist has an idea of the intensity that maybe other people 

don’t have, but artists get better as they get older.”

In February, Toubeau exhibited her artwork at the First Universalist Society of Franklin. The same month, she also held a demonstration for the Franklin Art Association entitled “The Future Awash,” which was filmed by Franklin TV. Visit www.franklintv.com to see the schedule. You can also check out Christine Blue Lamb Toubeau’s work at
www.chrisbluelamb.com .