Robert’s self-portrait with fellow artist and best friend Sean McQuay is set in a city and shows the recently graduated art students debating whether to stay in Nova Scotia or to pursue adventures and careers elsewhere. A diagonal road stretches between the heads, acting like a speech balloon as it appears to emerge from the mouth of the figure on the left. An early study was titled: “Two Philosophers in the Pop City of Tomorrow.” At this time, Robert did several images depicting the theme of “going down the road,” which he sometimes portrayed as expulsion and sometimes portrayed as escape.

The painting uses a visual device Robert repeated over the years. Two figures face each other in profile at opposite ends of the image. Between the heads are placed symbolic elements that represent a choice, thought or point of connection between the figures. In The Seal Upon Thy Heart series, it’s a man and woman who face one another. The connecting symbol denotes the unspeakable mystery of love. In the Illness and Healing series, doctors face one another; between them stretches the mystery of diagnosis.

The conversation in the image above is not so much a mystery as a wealth of choices. It reflects both the optimism and confidence of youth, and the likely separation of two friends as they pursue different paths.