| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
April Issue 2008
Robert Lange Studios in Charleston,
SC, Features Works by Robert Lange
Charleston-based painter Robert Lange investigates his role as the creator in a series of 17 new works entitled The Joy of Painting. On view from Apr. 1 - 30, 2008, at Robert Lange Studios, in Charleston, SC, the show chronicles the painter's role in the production of a painting.
At the modest age of 27, Lange was recently featured in New American Paintings and invited to join the Charleston Fine Art Dealers Association. He received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and is best known for creating bodies of work that investigate the intimate details of the art industry.
In Oct. 2006, Lange's acclaimed series, Behind Their Paintings, portrayed artists and their brushes in a personal yet identifying fashion. In last year's series, The Exhibition, Lange continued this investigation by matching patrons with unexpected paintings, the result of which created alluring narratives. In The Joy of Painting, Lange is now giving the viewer a look at the practicable artists' impact on their subject and through this, reminds the viewer that the artist is present in the painting.
Some humorous, some obvious, and some subtler but in each painting Lange has illustrated his active role in the creation process. For example, in one of the pieces for his show titled, Live Well, Lange has depicted a nude figure holding a watering can. Within the watering can is a barely noticeable reflection of the artist taking the photograph.
"I am fascinated by how the realized presences of the painter changes the viewer's experience," says Lange. "I've only ever looked at paintings as a painter and therefore my experience is very different then most people's. In this show I wanted to remind the viewer that still lives start as objects and chiaroscuro paintings start with a candle and a model, the rest the painter generates during the creation process."
In Little Moment, one of the works from his upcoming show, Lange paints himself as a tiny artist working on a giant painting of a woman's face. Due to the comparative scale of the artist and painting, Lange appears consumed by the sixty-foot model before him. This piece exhibits not only the artist's direct role in painting the piece but also his humbled feeling towards capturing the quintessential essence of the subject.
"I truly love painting and perhaps more than anything else the reinvention that takes place every time I make a painting," says Lange. "The interaction between the artist and the subject being painted, which is the physical painting itself, even more than the actual application of the paint or subject matter, is what I think captivates the viewer."
For further info check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/805-8052 or visit (www.robertlangestudios.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.