Robert Solomon
Artist Statement


              My artistic painting practice is rooted in process, materiality, and experimentation, and my paintings often cross the boundaries into (or spring out of) printmaking and photography methods. Over the years, I have found that while my interests and influences remain relatively consistent, it is the means through which my materials (such as but not limited to: water based emulsions, pigment, dye, modified plaster, stain, rope) function – both singularly and together – that keeps my work in a constant state of flux and evolution, which I find to be lively, freeing, and guided by intuition. Materiality guides me consciously, while my interests guide me subconsciously.
              Landscape, architecture, calligraphy, and pattern making are examples of influences which cause my paintings to oscillate between the organic and geometric.  These dichotomies are the most consistent aspects of my work over time, but I don’t pursue them consciously.  Instead, as I work, I experiment with materials both new and old to my process, I create rules which I inevitably break due to the nature of my materials. My recent work is gestural with the barest of preconceived subject matter. The diptych paintings use a format that encourages a heightened awareness of orientation and movement: the right and left sections must somehow be reconciled to my physical handedness. I believe technique is important but a secondary concern to the finished work, much like a director not getting in the way of the narrative, allowing the visual experience to be completed in the mind of the viewer.
Notes on painting  9/4/19:
I  began reading (2015) Rothko's journal notes on technique and noticed similarities between his use of thinned down paint and my aniline dye on paper. The question was how to achieve the effect of watercolor on canvas; it took a year and a half to fully transition to a unique blend of thinned down vinyl plaster and PVA to achieve the effect I wanted. The blue tape is a remnant of taping a sheet of paper to the table; the pearl gray aniline dye still used to block out the shapes of my paintings. The fabric I had been collecting for years. I had even experimented with a Duchampian dress called LLOHQ, perhaps a memory of my father taking me to 4th St. to have custom pants made. Use of printers ink and saffron is serendiptous, you just have to remenber additives to anything break down the chemical bond. Painting directly on fabric is difficult. I never believed painting a pure abstract was possible unless of course the result was gorgeous: Richter and the artist who gold plates his foam core paintings. I usually can find faces in the works of Pollock and Lee Krasner.