Petersen’s delightful obsession makes him happy. “Each painting,” he says, “has a different kind of mathematical solution; I’m not always able to solve it, but I try to work out a pattern of shapes.” Petersen’s esthetic is to amalgamate abstraction with realism and develop his th
eme in an architectural layout, in this case, a picnic. His explanation doesn’t is too bland to help. “I could take the tabletop,” he said, “throw it into the landscape, and then I’d set my figures around it. The picnic seemed the best excuse to bring the still life, the figure, and the landscape together. It seemed to be a natural kind of path for me to follow.” 
A catalog of Petersen’s titles includes Picnic Scene, The Rockaway Picnic, An American Picnic, Carnation Picnic, Picnic Scene, Lagoon Picnic, Picnic with Blue Dog, Picnic with Palm Trees, and so on
Petersen’s picnics are abstract approximations of a picnic. You can usually see tables and sometimes chairs or benches. Food is usually not delineated or identifiable. Only a bottle of wine is on the table in Picnic with Blue Dog (2005)—no glasses or food. The tray in Untitled (1986) suggests sandwiches.
Featured Image: Petersen’s The Picnic (1990), his most picnicky picnic.
See Roland Petersen: Fifty Years of Painting, 1960-2010, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, 2010; https://modernartdealers.com/artists/roland-petersen/