VENTURA : Former Cop Now Fights Violence With His Paintings

More than 25 years ago, Roland Roy encountered one too many victims of violent crime. As a rookie cop on the Honolulu police force, Roy despised the violence and decided to switch to art after a picture he sketched of a murder suspect led to an arrest.

Today, his paintings hang in galleries across the country and, this month, in a restaurant in Ventura to benefit victims of domestic abuse.

The women in Roy’s paintings enjoy their independence; they’re fighters, whether they’re pictured sitting in a garden, in a field or leaning against a wall. And they emanate that inner strength for a reason, the Hawaiian-born artist says of his work.

He recalls a particularly disturbing rape victim and his department’s success in catching her pursuer.

“We got the guy because he was so beaten up, because she fought back. That’s the kind of a woman that I see, someone who would fight back,” said Roy, a resident of Newbury Park.

Several of Roy’s brightly colored oil paintings are being shown in the Clocktower Cafe on Santa Clara Street until Jan. 1 to help benefit women and children treated at a local shelter. Interface Children and Family Services of Ventura County will receive 10% of every painting sold, Roy said.

The restaurant features a new artist in the dining room each month, owner Suzanne Reynolds said.

“I try to give what I can, which is art,” Roy said. “I think they need some help.”

Proceeds from the paintings--which range from $300 to $3,200--will help the shelter fund counseling and education services for abused children and families in crisis, said Jeanette Villanueva, a spokeswoman for Interface.

“He wanted to donate his paintings to a good cause,” Villanueva said.

Roy, who also paints athletes and landscapes and has done charity work for muscular dystrophy, spent time in Los Angeles producing and directing movies for about 15 years before he began painting full time.

Roy is reluctant to speak of his police work. “When you’re confronted with something like that, it doesn’t go away,” he said. “But my work is more peaceful now.”