ARTIST STATEMENT
I make paintings of figures linked through sight, intention, and proximity that look at human bodies as archives, with a focus on body language as a signifier of class, power, longing and absence. This body of work draws from both the body and the environment interweaving figural representations with spatial disruptions and/or dislocations. Some of the recent work also addresses the loss of intimacy and touch along with private space and time, when quarantined with others. My interests lie in how we navigate and interpret memory, materials and space and how this can define the body with an emphasis on the representation of the body as a site of subtle slippage, an intended slippage between observation and illusion. I am drawn to topics involving the limitations and dissonance between the body, representation and the mediated image.
I have always been interested in beginning my paintings and drawings from observation, looking at skin, light, shadow, muscles, fat, and body position and understanding how careful observation can create desire but also removal. My paintings present an interrelated collection of figural and material gestures and spaces whose meaning is determined by their relationship to each other.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Robin Adsit received her B.F.A from the San Francisco Art Institute with an emphasis in painting and drawing. She went on to complete an M.A. in Painting and Drawing from San Francisco State University, and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from The Ohio State University. Most recently she was awarded a month long artist residency at the Jentel Foundation to begin this August, 2022. In July, 2019 she was an Artist in Residence at ChaNorth in Pine Plains, New York. In August,2019 she was awarded a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. In January 2017, she was awarded a residency at MASSMoCA, MA. In May 2009, she participated in an artist residency and open studios at 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, CA.
In 2003, Robin was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for painting and drawing. Robin’s paintings and drawings have appeared in numerous national and regional exhibitions and include most recently, The Indivisable Spectrum,The Painting Center, NY, Out of Office, Collar Works, Troy, NY, And Elsewhere, An exhibition of five west coast artists, Charles Long Projects, CA., One in a Year, The Painting Center and her work is included in the Painting Center Flat files, Romancing Sustainability: Figuring Change, ChaShaMa, NY, 23rd International Open, Woman Made gallery, Chicago, Ordinary Life in Unusual Times, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT. A solo exhibition, Fixed, Fluid and Framed at The Little Gallery of San Bernardino. Concrete and Adrift at the Alexandria Museum of Art, LA, Currents exhibition at AIR Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Field Projects, NY, and Headlands Center for the Arts.
© Robin Adsit