Robert Otto Epstein “Sally Jessy Raphael”
Hionas Gallery LES
This event has ended.
Hionas Gallery is pleased to announce the forthcoming solo exhibition from Robert Otto Epstein, entitled Sally Jessy Raphael. The show will comprise selections from three series of works including Epstein’s figurative portraits, 8Bitterized paintings, and Baseball Card paintings, to be exhibited according to the gallery’s three sequential viewing areas.
Within each series Epstein adopts varying approaches to dissecting his subjects into their most elemental components; while some retain their form, others are rendered intricate gestalts composed of 8-bit building blocks. These geometric prototypes are color coded seemingly as Epstein sees fit, lending the work measures of abstraction, yet are sequenced according to a hyper-strict order that never deviates from what the larger construct commands.
Each of Epstein’s portraits depicts the subject as color field and kept within its figurative confines. Their differing cutaneous pigmentations, however, suggest something that is at once scientific and spontaneous; portraiture as process art, equally beholden to a love for natural patterns and the routines of a computer coder.
Epstein is a deconstructionist. Beginning with a grid blueprint, he patterns each piece from the same origin point each time—the bottom right-hand corner—then allows process to dictate the ensuing grids and repetitions. This meticulous programming-by-hand comes to reveal systems by way of muscle memory. Exactly to what degree he opts to deconstruct his subjects is left to anything but chance. Epstein’s Baseball Card paintings, for example, are geometric abstractions that covertly find their form within harmonies of color that keep the grids grounded, in a sense, bitterized only to such a degree wherein the figure and the pattern that comprises it are one and the same.
According to the artist, “through my work I explore the way that repetitiveness is structured into discrete forms, which become the pattern, which become the system, which is itself repeating.”
The opening reception for Sally Jessy Raphael will take place on Thursday, July 7, at 6:00 PM. The artist will be present. For more information visit www.hionasgallery.com.
Robert Otto Epstein (b.1979, Pittsburgh, PA) studied philosophy and political science at the University of Pittsburgh, and law at the University of Durham, UK. He has exhibited widely in the U.S. and Europe, including at The Hole, New York; The Drawing Center, New York; Morgan Lehman, New York; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York; Mulherin + Pollard, New York; Pierogi, Brooklyn; Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA; Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY; Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY; Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmont, NY; Ada Gallery, Richmond, VA; Voorkamer Gallery, Belgium; and Retramp Gallery, Berlin, among dozens of others. Epstein’s exhibited and curatorial work has been featured and reviewed in such publications as The New York Times, L Magazine, Juxtapoz, Make Space, The New Criterion, Design Sponge, and Curating Contemporary, among others. Selected works are in the corporate collections of Facebook, The Big Human, and Fidelity Investments, to name a few. The artist lives and works just outside of New York City.
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Schedule
from July 07, 2016 to August 05, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-07-07 from 18:00 to 20:00