Robert M. Ellis, an artist and educator, enjoyed experimenting with his own artwork, often
painting landscapes from a bird's eye perspective, reconfiguring his square canvas to create
diamond forms, and creating rhomboid-shaped mono-prints of valley views and landmark
scenes of northern New Mexico.
Inspired by the design of irrigated fields in the valley floors of San Cristobal, Ellis played
on the creation of traditional landscapes, accentuating the existing geometric forms
by framing them within geometrical shapes. Along with the use of aerial perspectives, Ellis
created elongated fields which draw the viewer into the painting.