In Robert’s art, animals are charged with symbolic importance. Wolves, horses, whales, goats, birds and butterflies appear as different faces of nature. The animals interact with people to suggest primal forces at play within the human relationships. At times, animals contrast with machines representing technology or science. Moby Dick, Hiroshima, Three Mile Island was created in response to a nuclear meltdown at a reactor in the Eastern United States in the 1980s. The famous whale Moby Dick suggests a powerful force of nature that can be devastating once turned against people. In Aesculapius, a snake coils round a patient’s IV-pole, a visual pun on the iconic medical staff of life. Here the animal has healing powers, though its spiral shape suggests unexpected turns in the patient’s journey.  In Butterfly, a beautiful insect alights near lovers to reflect a momentary radiance of being. As well, animals can express feelings of pain and alarm. In Sparrow, the singing bird, glimpsed through a hospital window, is symbolic of the healthy outside world the patient longs to join. In Family, a dog cries out at the site of a grave. This “talking animal” motif shows an animal able to express feelings that are repressed within people.