Roberts, a Chicago-based artist, received his degree from the University of Chicago. This painting is 12x12 inches. Roberts was a teacher at the redoubtavle Hyde Park Art Center and his work genuinely leaps out at you with big strokes, extravagent colors, lots and lots of paint. His paintings imply motion (at least whenI look at them). If this artist was a teacher at Hyde Park Art Center it makes you want to take classes there.
Santoro, also of Chicago and also formerly of the University of Chicago, takes the world we live in and recreates it in his own expressive vision. His work includes landscapes like this one and also images of smaller scale, every day objects. You can see the abstract expressionist roots that the treee of Santoro's work springs from--reality is present in the work yet he isn't trying to duplicate this reality.
Expressionism is an art movement that values individual expression and emotion (as the name implies). Trying to avoid jargon talking about "Expressionism" is a tough road, in part because when you look at different artists, from different nations, referred to as "Expressionist," you wind up looking at wildly different pieces. But Santoro's work, however you label it, has motion, depth and a massive feel even when it is small in scale. Lovely work whatever you call it.