ROBIN DASH PAINTINGS ON PAINTINGS
FEBRUARY 5 – MARCH 21, 2020
CARROLL AND SONS
ART GALLERY
ROBIN DASH PAINTINGS ON PAINTINGS FEBRUARY 5 – MARCH 21, 2020 RECEPTION: FRIDAY FEBRUARY 7, 2020, 5:30 – 7:30
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 16 X 20”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 24 x 20”
Paintings on Paintings: In Conversation with Robin Dash and Joseph Carroll Joseph Carroll: I am so looking forward to having your paintings on the walls in the gallery this February and March. The title for the show - “Paintings on Paintings” - lends itself to several interpretations and implies a history. That made me think about our history, which goes back to somewhere around 1990 before I was involved in the art scene. But I think the first time I saw your work was in 2000 in a show at the Allston Skirt Gallery when it was still in Allston. Does that seem right to you? What did your work look like at that time? Robin Dash: Ha! In 2000, I had a 2-person show at Allston Skirt with Michelle Grabner. I was doing work on canvas and paper that explored the relationship of organic and abstract shapes to each other and sometimes I threw in poodle woman self portraits with trails of little bean shapes to connote a lived trajectory. Michelle and I were shown together because color interaction, that optical buzz and life force, was so important to each of us. The next show I had at Allston Skirt, “Where’s Aizley”, was a solo show in 2003 that you actually helped me install. That installation was comprised of more than 50 shaped canvases of varying sizes depicting a broad swathe of geometric abstraction. They abutted each other and included some canvases that were painted only one color. Viewers were surrounded by three walls of canvases, floor to ceiling. All canvases were for sale for 100 bucks apiece, so people could collect one or multiples of their choice... JC: I thought I remembered the poodle woman self-portraits and the floating bean shapes. Didn’t a couple of those works come out again for a recent show at Room 83 Spring in Watertown? It was great to see them again, like running into old friends. And I totally remember, “Where’s Aizley”. In 2003, you were working on the paintings in a studio here in the South End on Albany Street. Most of the canvases were small and you made them over time and then placed them up on the wall. They spread over the wall organically, one relating to the next, each one building on the context of the paintings adjacent. The arrangement of the paintings became as important as the individual works and I think you brought me in to install them on the walls of the Allston Skirt Gallery to reflect how they were hung in the studio. That was when the gallery was on the third floor of 450 Harrison. And I’m happy to live with two paintings from that show. The way the paint goes over the edges of those early canvases reminds me of the layered edges of the new canvases. It does strike me though, how you can almost say the paintings from “Where’s Aizley” were made in response to each other, like those now included in “Paintings on Paintings.” Only this time, the paintings are actually on top of previous paintings, as well as within the context of each other. And I’ve shown a few of these paintings before in previous iterations, if we look back through the layers. You can still see some floral images on some canvases that were
included in the group exhibition, “No Boys Allowed”, back in 2016. What compels you to paint on top of your previous paintings? RD: Hmmm, important question, Joe. Sometimes I save a painting because I absolutely love it and know it’s gonna be that way forever. Sometimes, I have a painting kicking around and I just know I can play with it some more and it will be more alive to me. And sometimes, the paintings that I thought would stay the way they were forever, start “talking” to me and I suddenly know what I’ve got to do to them. I guess I feel that painting is an experience and thought process that goes through life with me. It puts me in touch with feelings, music, movement, sensations and visions of early life. It is tied into the intensity I feel about injustice and also bolsters my commitment to fighting it. So, why all of that on top of an initial work, instead of starting a new canvas? In a sense, the layering gives new life to the canvas. As Dylan says, “...It’s life, and life only”. I love the on-goingness of the work, what makes it more than an object, it’s history & capacity to grow and change. Sometimes, magically, that can happen at first blush. But, other times the dialogue between the work and myself seems to be continuously fluid and open, which brings us to the paintings in your current show...
JC: We have nine paintings in the show - each one shows the build up of layers over time. For those folks seeing the paintings for the first time, the lives of the canvas may be more difficult to read. Your paintings in “No Boys Allowed” were what we referred to as the flower paintings. Remnants of the flowers are still evident in a couple of the paintings on
the wall now. In the paintings on the previous page (all are untitled) a portion of the flowers from 2016 on the left are still visible in the 2019 painting on the right. Whereas in other paintings, like the two below, the flower layer from 2016 (left) has been completely painted over in 2019 (right).
I’m not sure how to refer to the painting versions - the surface is obviously layered, and layered over time. Each layer was a finished painting - finished until you or the painting decided that more work needed to be done. There were several paintings on each canvas before the flowers happened. Were the flowers the only points in the painting that were figurative? I have to say, the flowers were a bit of a surprise when I first saw them. I think the earlier paintings referenced abstract painting - some had washes of color, or Pollocklike splatters and ribbons of color. Despite the pictorial difference of each painting, there is always a sense of physicality to the way the paint is applied. Aside from the flowers, it looks like you are inspired by mid-century American abstraction. Is that true? RD: Yes, that is true, but true in different ways and at different points in time. I was born right into Abstract Expressionism, in the mid-1950s in New York City. I remember seeing Pollocks in person as a child. I regularly visited the Pollocks, Krasners, deKoonings, Hofmanns, Frankenthalers, Motherwells, Gorkys and Gustons at MoMA (which was referred to as “The Modern� when I was a kid) and the Whitney, in the afternoons after high school, before I went to night classes at the Art Students League and the New School. Those paintings spoke to me and I felt deep pleasure being with them. Later, when I studied with Ellen Banks at the Museum School and then Sidney Tillim, Pat Adams & Phillip Wofford at Bennington, I was able to fully engage that visual language, as well as other considerations in color, space, gesture, composition and subject matter.
As time has gone on, some of those considerations remain and some have changed or shifted, as you’ve seen in a broad spectrum of my work (work on paper, video, installations and sculpture, as well as paintings). I think it’s funny that you thought of the “flower paintings” as figurative. In some instances, like a lone flower, I guess they were selfportraits. In most others, the flowers were just a way to slow down the gesture. I was interested in the optical buzz of those little chunks of shaped and saturated color — the visual equivalent of microtones. In the past few years, I’ve wanted the paintings to get closer and trigger bigger shapes, space and structure. I enjoy playing with what is revealed and concealed in unexpected ways, as well as discovering offbeat color relationships. The work of Myron Stout, Paul Feeley and Tony Smith is particularly meaningful to me. I am immersed in developing the life of a large shape by switching to a very small brush and slowly and carefully rendering its contour. Bits and pieces of the prior little flower shapes take on a whole new meaning in this context, as do the larger brushed and spattered areas of yore. So, in these paintings on paintings, it’s all there somehow, somewhere, even if it’s buried or only peeking out a bit. And THERE you have it...
This work has been supported by grants from The Artist’s Resource Trust.
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 32 x 22”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 20 x 20”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 30 x 30”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 20 x 20”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 18 x 14”
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 30 x 26
UNTITLED 2019 OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 30 x 20”
ROBIN DASH EDUCATION MFA, Bennington College, Bennington, VT BA, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2020 2013 2007 2003 1999 1997 1995 1988 1986
Paintings on Paintings, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA In Plain Air, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA Don’t Climb the Pyramids, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA Where’s Aizley?, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA Angel Orensanz Foundation, New York, NY Ludmilla Baczynsky Gallery, New York, NY Sunnen Gallery, New York, NY Orphanos Gallery, Boston, MA Southern Vermont College, Bennington, VT
TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2019 Robin Dash & Diane Atsuko Suda, Work on Paper & Explorations in Ikebana, Artists in Residence, room 83 Spring, Watertown, MA 2000 Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA (with Michelle Grabner) THREE PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2007 Flip Viola and the Blurs, Bill Viola, Robin Dash and Joan Nelson Triple Candie, NY, NY 2004 Off the Shelf - Drawings by Robert Amesbury, Robin Dash and Rachel Perry Welty, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY, NY curated by Joseph Carroll GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 Un Cochon de Métier, room 83 Spring, Watertown, MA, curated by Monique Johannet Matereality, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA 2017 Garbage Necklace, How’s Howard Gallery, Boston, MA Boston Art Book Fair, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA Peace is Power, Yoko Ono collaborative installation, Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY Dance Me Loose, How’s Howard Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 No Boys Allowed, Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston, MA 2014 Artists Choose Artists, Abrazo Interno Gallery, The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center NY, NY 2013 Wrap Around 2, curated by Renee Riccardo, ARENA@Suite 806, 89 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 2009 Eye World, Case Space, Triple Candie, NY, NY, curated by Emily Cheng and Michelle Loh 2007 HOMEGROWN, David Krut Projects, NY, NY, curated by Renee Riccardo White Light, motel gallery, Portland, OR 2006 Global Pop, selections from the Boston Drawing Project, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA THE DIN, James Hull Fine Art, Boston, MA, curated by Doug Weathersby Artist’s Resource Trust: The First Ten Years, Trustman Art Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA 29th Small Works, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, New York, NY, juried by Jack Shainman 2005 Picturing Words: selections from the Boston Drawing Projectat Bernard Toale Gallery, University Gallery at UMass Lowell, Lowell, MA PAPER!AWESOME!, Pigman Gallery, San Francisco, CA curated by Brion Nuda Rosch honey bunches, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA 2004 Word, Bronx River Art Center, NY, NY, curated by Paul Laster and Renee Riccardo Boston Drawing Project, New Work, New Faces, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA “Art Words”, Mario Diacono Fine Art, Boston, MA 2003 South Enders 2, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA Gone Fishin’, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA 2002 It’s My Pleasure, Fort Point Arts Community Gallery, Boston, MA 2001 The Drawing Show, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, curated by Bill Arning “What I did this summer...”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA 2000 Twice Born: Beauty, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA curated byShelly Bancroft 1999 Apocalypse 1999, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY Close To You, The Gallery @ Green Street, Jamaica Plain, MA, curated by Sheila Pepe Sprung Rhythm, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA A Quiet Revolution, The Lois Foster Exhibition of Boston Area Painters, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA curated by Susan Stoops The Edge of Vision/The Edge of Sight, Montserrat College of Art Gallery, Beverly, MA curated by Barbara O’Brien 1998 Third Annual Small Works Exhibition and Benefit, PS 122 Gallery, New York, NY Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA curated by Laura Hoptman 1995 Venturing So Close, SOHO 20, New York, NY curated by Jane Harris
COLLABORATION AND SET DESIGN 2000 Tricksters & Heroes, New England Philharmonic Tsai Performance Center, Boston, MA Heart Piece, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA 1999 Fabula, with Spencer/Colton, Teatro Rasi, Ravenna, Italy 1998 Prairie Du Chien, Merrick Theatre, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA The Lost Tensions, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA 1997 Can You Hear A Motion? , with Marty Ehrlich, Stan Strickland and Erica Hunt Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA 1996 TWILIGHT: Los Angeles, 1992 Concord Academy Performing Arts Center, Concord, MA One Day 4 Contemporary Arts, American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA Used Cars, with Ricky Ford, Karen Klein, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA Umai’s Journey, Boston Musica Viva, The Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Boston Musica Viva, The Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA 1995 The Automobile Graveyard, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA 1994 The Big Window, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland 1990 Davidsbundlertanze, with Stephen Drury, Ruth Birnberg, Boston University, Boston, MA 1988 Red Riding, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA AWARDS 2019 2005 2002 2000 1999 1995
Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Creative Center Fellowship, New York, NY Triangle Artists’ Workshop Fellowship, World Trade Center, New York, NY Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Brookline Council for the Arts and Humanities grant
REVIEWS 2018 Elizabeth Michelman, Un Cochon de Métier (Painting is Wicked Hard), Artscope Magazine, Sept. 1, 2018 2007 Reviews, Francine Koslow Miller tema celeste, Issue 124 Nov./Dec. A Touch with Abstraction, Cate McQuaid The Boston Globe, September 13, 2007 ARTIST REGISTRY The White Columns Curated Artist Registry, White Columns, New York, NY
COLLECTIONS Bank of America, Boston MA Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, Brookline MA Brandeis University, Women's Studies Research Center, Waltham MA Fidelity Investments , Boston MA New England Conservatory of Music , Boston MA The Ritz Carlton, Boston MA
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