Alexander Rohrig: California Native

Alexander Rohrig: California Native

Alexander Rohrig: California Native Gallery 3 November 18 to December, 31, 2016 Reception: Saturday, November 19, 5:30 to 7:30 Front Cover: Alexander Rohrig, New Leaf, oil on canvas, 63 x 60 in Back Cover: Alexander Rohrig, 93 22 RE , 2016, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in Photo Credits Cover Image: Scotty McDonald Photograph of the artist: Laurie Frankel

Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-384-8288 seagergray.com

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If you study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure.

So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole.

Exerpt from a letter written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo ARLES 1888

Alexander Rohrig: California Native

Alexander Rohrig lives and works in magnificent surroundings in the mountains in San Gregorio, California. In 2009, he took a position as studio assistant to artist and sculptor Jane Rosen on her ranch, a beautiful natural preserve high in the California mountains. For seven years, Rohrig has helped Rosen cut stone, assemble works, and has acted as preparator for sculptures and drawings going in and out of the studio. Under Rosen’s tutelage, and with his daily practice of drawing from these extraordinary surroundings, Rohrig has developed a vision all his own, a stark honesty that asks of things only to be what they are.

The title of the exhibition, “California Native,” is as straightforward as the artist himself - as straightforward as his stone dogfaces and painted wooden structures against a vast landscape. Rohrig grew up in the Bay Area.

Although he was always interested in art, he started his university studies in biology, thinking he might be a doctor. “I was a little afraid of what being an artist would mean,” says the artist. But the call was strong and he switched to art in his sophomore year, completing his studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in fine art.

His interest in surfing, artists and Santa Cruz culture introduced him to another way of thinking about how to proceed with his art. He speaks about the creative aspects of surfing and the freedom of self-expression inherent in the surf culture. Certainly risk and abandonment to the process would come into play, but also the physicality of it – the streamlined alignment that comes from being in the moment. One of the people he met while living in Santa Cruz, Peter Kirkeby, introduced him to Jane Rosen

New Leaf oil on canvas, 2015 63 x 60 in

It was a fortuitous meeting for both of them. Rosen often works with heavy marble, stone and glass and needed someone to help her in the studio. After working together for a time, she was more than happy to exchange a place to live and an apprenticeship to the talented young artist. For Alex, who loves natural surroundings and time to himself the opportunity to also

work with a master artist who could teach him in so many media was ideal.

His introduction to contemporary art through the many people from New York visiting the ranch led him to explore artists as widely diverse as Amy Sillman, Dana Schutz and Alex Katz going back in time to David Hockney, Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston and even further back to Matisse, Picasso and Cezanne. His ability to shape shift the tapestries as elemental as composition, color, imagery, space weaving figuration and abstraction into something uniquely his own is apparent in the largest painting in the exhibition, New Leaf. Subject matter as diverse as landscape, figuration and narrative give the viewer a way into Rohrig’s multi-layered thinking.

In his sculpture, Rohrig works minimally and intuitively. He loves the physicality of the materials and the pleasure of touching things. His ingeniously simple stone and marble dog faces are put together often times from left over materials. He assembles the works and with a few lines or chipped in textures somehow unerringly gets at the nature of the animal.

As with his structures and landscapes he endears us to his subjects by paring them down to their essential shapes. It is enough for them to be what they are. There is no conceit in Rohrig’s work, no effort to romanticize or project some notion of his own upon them, but instead there is a studied adherence to what is there which give the work its dazzling honesty.

Donna Seager, November 2016

93 22 RE oil on canvas 12 x 16 in

Behind Studio C oil on canvas , 2016 18 x 12 in

California Cypresses oil on canvas , 2016 20 x 16 in

Oak Tree in the Pasture oil on canvas, 2016 11 x 14 in

T he Stone Cutter (A ssistant) oil on canvas, 2016 20 x 18 in

T he Wood Stack s oil on canvas, 2016 11 x 16 in

T he Hills Beyond oil on canvas, 2016 11 x 14 in

SCULPTURE

Deer on the Hill wood, foam, glue, metal rod and paint , 2016 19 x 20 x 7 in

A corn Woodpecker painted marble , 2015 8 x 1.5 x 2.5

Summer Horse (f lies) wood, paint and found metal , 2015 16 x 15 x 5 in

Spotted Dog ink and pigment on limestone , 2016 10 x 8 x 3 in

R ed painted limestone , 2016 7 x 7 x 1.5 in

Suspicious Scotty ink on limestone , 2016 9 x 6.5 x 4.5 in

Abstract Side Dog ink on limestone , 2016 8.5 x 6 x 3 in

Preen limestone, marble, paint, foam, resin, wood, 2015 23 x 10 x 5 in

Alexander James Rohrig Born: Bay Area, CA 1982 Education B.A. University of California at Santa Cruz 2003 Lives and works in Northern California Solo Exhibitions 2016

California Native, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

2015

New Work, Gail Severn Gallery, Sun Valley, ID A Casual Installation, Peter Kirkeby Fine Art, San Francisco, CA

Group Exhibitions 2016 Powder and Smoke, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Material Matters, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA 2015 Bird in the Hand, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA Animalia IV, Gail Severn Gallery, Sun Valley, ID Terra Cognita: Nature in Art, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Material Matters, Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Related Experience 2012-2016:

preparator for Gail Severn Gallery and Cynthia Reeves gallery, SF Artmarket fairs

2009-present: studio assistant to artist Jane Rosen (janerosen.com) 2007-2009:

studio assistant to artist Thomas Campbell

Bibliography Works and Conversations issue #28: featured artist, artist’s portfolio