Saturday, January 31, 2009

And then there were three...


Join us in welcoming our third new artist this month! Colette Robbins will be showing her work alongside Reuben Negron and Noa Charuvi at our New Artists Silent Auction We journeyed up to Harlem today to visit her studio, and it was WAY worth the trip.


Colette's paintings are acrylic on wood panel. Her work explores contradictions in sculpture vs. photography vs. paintings. In her words: "My paintings and drawings deal with remnants of the figure. Whether it's a rolled up bundle of severed legs or strange helmet-like fossils that may or may not have once been alive, my images speak about what survives."


"Within the paintings/drawings there are highly detailed manmade objects placed in natural or neutral scenes. These scenes look like they should be inhabited by the living but are not. Instead they are occupied by objects that reference the form or utility of a human. The works have many areas that are rich with intricate patterns and atmospheric textures that form type.s of known variables for the viewer to enter into. Once the viewer acknowledges the known components of the works they are faced with the question of why these elements exist within the space of the painting. The viewer soon sees that the scenes are the consequence of unknown events. Therefore they function like a story being told in reverse."


"Like the way cultural tragedies make us look backwards at the trail of clues the present hands us, my work implies a, perhaps, tragic history. The viewer is left to wonder who has abandoned this here and what should be done with it. The responsibility is to whoever stumbles across these uncanny scenes as the task falls on those which remain."



Hear Colette discuss one of her works!

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