ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are primarily watercolor and mixed media on paper and panel. I paint figures that are linked through gesture, intention, and proximity and explore human bodies as archives of meaning, with a focus on body language as a signifier of desire, longing and absence. These paintings draw from both the body and the environment interweaving figural representations with spatial disruptions created through the emotive, material and psychological use of color and shapes. I am interested in beginning my paintings and drawings from observation, looking at skin, light, muscles, fat, body position and understanding how careful observation can create desire but also removal. I create these figures to open up narratives that embody both image and materials, and to address a feral desire to escape captivity, domestication (others) and embrace less tame surroundings and experiences. Perhaps this is rooted in my desire to understand how political and personal histories are inherent in our awareness of both the self and others. Or how bodies, ground, soil, and place reference a sense of belonging. I want to explore the ways the body is vulnerable to loss of control and autonomy in our social, legal, and cultural spheres.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Robin Adsit is a visual artist and painter who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for painting and drawing. She was awarded an artist residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2023 and the Jentel Foundation in 2022. In 2019 she was an Artist in Residence at ChaNorth in Pine Plains, NY and in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. In 2017, she was awarded a residency at MASSMoCA, MA. She earned a M.F.A. in Painting from The Ohio State University, a M.A. in Painting from San Francisco State University, and her B.F.A from the San Francisco Art Institute. Robin’s paintings and drawings have appeared in numerous exhibitions and collections which include Democracy Under Siege at Hera Gallery, Converge, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Storage Gallery, NYC, The Painting Center, NY, Collar Works, and Charles Long Projects, CA. Her work is included in the Painting Center Flat files, ChaShaMa, and Ely Center of Contemporary Art. Concrete and Adrift at the Alexandria Museum of Art, LA, Currents exhibition at AIR Gallery, Field Projects, NY, and Headlands Center for the Arts.
© Robin Adsit