ROBIN GOWEN
This exhibit represents the fourth Solo Exhibition of the works of Robin Gowen which Sullivan Goss, Ltd. has presented in the past eight years. With each exhibition Gowen's work moves forward...dramatically. Historically the evolution in her work is most evident in her palatte.
Once again this years exhibit shows remarkable experimentation in color. In her first exhibit the artist demonstrated a wonderful competence in design and compostion. As might be expected her palette was confined to the colors found in nature. Gowen is partially a "plein air" painter and her loyalty to nature's colors was understandable.
As the years have progressed however, her fidelity to nature's colors has waned. Several years ago she began to experiment with heightened colors, and more concentrated and contrasting colors. Eventually her efforts were rewarded in a series of paintings whose colors were completely divorced from the customary colors of nature. In her current exhibit the artist has boldly gambled her pigmentations: sometimes in harmony, sometimes in contrast. Color is the defining force in the current body of work.
Sullivan Goss, Ltd is proud to present the work of this artist who has the courage to follow the conventions of color where they are rivited to the heart of the scape, but who also listens to the siren of her own specters when they call for bold invention.
At the opening of this Exhibition Robin Gowen spoke briefly about her experience as a painter:
"when I work, each response I give in paint to the places or person I am painting is about the unease and power I sense from them. Each response is most particular to the image, the rhythms and the harmonies, broken or completed chords. Sometimes the musis is Berwald or Aflven, sometimes it's Kid Ory's jazz, or the Beatles or the folk music of the Andes. That is why my style is not singular and my palette is changeful. I am honestly responding to my need to draw out and derive pattern, to make the implicit explicit."