Some Thoughts About My Recent Work

The figure has always been a dominant presence in my work. Over the course of the forty plus years that I have been painting, this figurative presence has evolved from naturalistic to expressionistic to its current more reductive state of abstraction.

Over this period of time I have been inspired by Western classical sculpture because of its naturalistic yet idealized representation of the figure and its overriding sensuality. The time that I have spent in Italy, and now in Greece, viewing sculpture and painting as well as archaeological sites has been invaluable to me. It has contributed to my vocabulary and shaped me as an artist.  Observing the mark of a hand and a brush on a 3000-year-old Minoan pot collapses time and connects me to a long, humanistic tradition.

Having pursued a lengthy period of expressionistic figurative work, in the last few years I began looking for a way to symbolize and combine both male and female attributes of the figure without relying upon direct representation. In order to accomplish this task I have done many small experimental drawings that have helped to clarify a new direction. In this recent pursuit I have been inspired by the sophisticated distillation of form as symbol found in African, Oceanic and Cycladic sculpture. In my new work I am hoping to achieve a similar sort of distillation of form in the integration and unification of both male and female characteristics in the paintings.

 

Robert Chiarito