Robert Yoder “My Mouth Fully Dry”

Robert Yoder “My Mouth Fully Dry”

frosch & portmann

This event has ended.

frosch&portmann presents MY MOUTH FULLY DRY, the gallery’s fourth solo exhibition by Seattle based artist Robert Yoder.

Robert Yoder’s recent body of work takes the imagery from past paintings and puts them into multiple possible environments. By monograming supports as diverse as cotton towels, hand cloths or more traditional materials like canvas or paper with symbolic imagery, the artist assigns ownership and property. Using invented symbols along with recognizable ones, Yoder creates an identity. Along with additional embellishments, these new works are a leftover from a past indicating the individual within the group. They show the wear and the use of their owner. With their shared aesthetics, they show an allegiance to the collective.

“It is no longer a question of refusing on principle, it is now for the sake of self-preservation.

Although I am fully invested in the final imagery, I experience a detachment from the work and feel emotionally evasive throughout the creation process. It seems I’m always thinking about loss, and how that crushing melancholy just seeps into every action and thought. I am withholding and introverted, and my disconnection during the art making process feels natural. There is a weird notion of anonymity I’m trying to maintain. I don’t purposefully think in terms of autobiography, although there have been a few veiled self portraits along the way, they act as some extension that has a better grasp on balance. The density created in some of the overworked drawings is a way for me to bury ideas and emotions while other pieces offer a cliched superficial reading. This recent body of work takes the imagery from past paintings and puts them into multiple possible environments. Using invented symbols along with recognizable ones, I am assigning ownership and property, and in doing so I am creating an identity.”

—Robert Yoder

Born in Danville, VA, Robert Yoder lives and works in Seattle. He received his B.F.A. from the James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA and his M.F.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Yoder’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States and Europe. Public collections include Microsoft, Boeing, Hallmark, Nike and Hewlett Packard. Museum collections include Seattle Art Museum, Portland Art Museum (Oregon), Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and The Henry Art Gallery. His work is in the collections of the cities of Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

Media

• Painting

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