Robert Swain “Primary Research”

Minus Space

poster for Robert Swain “Primary Research”

This event has ended.

MINUS SPACE announces the solo exhibition Robert Swain: Primary Research. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery and it will focus on his life-long investigation into color sensation.

In 1969, Robert began developing his own color system, the centerpiece of which is a 30-part hue (color) circle. When joined with the attributes of value (the lightness or darkness of a color) and saturation (the pureness of a color), his system grew exponentially over the following decades to now include 4,896 distinct parts.

Robert Swain: Primary Research will feature an array of material facets from his color inquiry, including a 30-part hue circle painting, original hand-painted and numbered color charts from the early 1970s, jars of premixed and color-calibrated acrylic paint from his exhaustive paint library, a suite of portfolios containing digital inkjet prints serving as color studies for potential paintings, a set of small brushstroke painting studies, as well as other related ephemera including color chips, mixing spoons, and more. The exhibition will also include two paintings spanning 30 years: a grid painting entitled Untitled 801 (1978, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches) and a brushstroke painting entitled Untitled 9-25-8 x 13-25-7 x 23-25-6 x 27-25-6 (2010, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 inches).

Regarding the development of his color system, Robert states "I became interested in color in the early 1960s. There wasn't a great deal of written information about it, but I work intuitively. I started to look at color and to make charts and experimental work trying to understand the phenomenology of color. I don't look at the work as being objective. I simply look at it as a way of trying to get into the subject matter of color and to understand it through experience. And all of this was done visually. It wasn't done mathematically. It wasn't done in some kind of progression. It was simply done by painting color charts, looking at them, and deciding in that moment of looking if they were correct or not."

About his increasing interest in color over the years, he continues, "One thing that fascinates me about color is that each individual color has its own connotation, which can be perceived as emotional or can affect you in some particular way. One of the things I strive for is to try to bring out the uniqueness of color itself as an expressive force. Color is involved with radiant energy. It's not passive, and in that sense, when you look at color, it's actually transferring energy into your physical self. One of the things you try to do is isolate some kind of vehicle, some kind of configuration that allows color to speak of itself and for itself."

Media

Schedule

from October 23, 2010 to December 04, 2010
Closed on November 26-27 for Thanksgiving.

Opening Reception on 2010-10-23 from 15:00 to 18:00

Artist(s)

Robert Swain

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