Introductions and links to each gallery:
Pivot / Echo Series
2024 to Present
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- South Hampton
Pivot: a fixed point supporting something which turns or balances.
Echo: repetitive structures ordering a visual field.
Our universe exists within a phenomena of cycles. - Johannes Kepler
My visual work has never been far from the influence of the grid.
For me it’s a device upon which to build a composition, a
construction and express visual paths. In the process of working
on the Conceal Reveal Series I found passages that had resulted
within the 2 inch squares enticing. (See Conceal Reveal No. 50.5)
While the over-all composition secures the visual field, when
isolating these squares I began to see other possibilities. The
paintings on view here are the result of enlarging these passages
to be their own compositions, statements of color, and surface.
-- Robert Cwiok, 2024
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Conceal Reveal Series
2014 to Present
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- Conceal Reveal Series, No.5
My archival pigment prints combine layered geometric configurations to create a visual field of patterns within patterns. These works have their origin in my collage work of many years and transform interior patterns from security envelopes into new and unique compositions. The original collages are maquettes for the finished prints. The first complete edition of 12 contains 30 prints each.
For inspiration I always return to papier collé. It is a different way to draw and fertile ground for new ideas. Collage materials are often unstable and as such the colors and papers have fugitive qualities. I have tried to improve my working materials so as to achieve the best possible permanence. A major tenant of my work has been to incorporate collage materials that have had an actual use and prior existence. Bringing the world into my work in this way allows me to bridge the gap between the two. The use of archival materials has led me to reinvent these compositions in silk screen monoprints such as the Columbia Pike Series of 1993 and the present on-going Conceal Reveal archival pigment print project.
Inhale Exhale
2002 – 2010
- Inhale Exhale, Clouds,
The Inhale Exhale works were directly correlated with my experience as a Gay man in a period of intense personal tragedy. The process of making this work, among other functions of art, was cathartic to my finally seeing a way forward. I began with small collages on paper. Slowly, I found myself creating larger works on canvas that were more structurally complex and multi-layered. In this period, especially the 2005 works on paper, I wove new themes into the grid structure specifying certain words that emotionally resonated within me.
For example; Myth, Fade, and Truant are title words that informed content and work in tandem with the visual cues. The repeated text “Inhale Exhale” speaks of the cyclic movement and fullness of life: air for breath, clouds for water, both essential to sustain life. In the larger paintings I layered land and sky images one over the other and dropped out an overlay of checkered pattern to reveal fractured and blended images beneath. I then reworked the surfaces with letters and hues. The repeated text which floats cloud-like across the surface activates the movement of the composition and lends graceful dignity to the work. The themes of these large paintings are the triumph of grace over grief, an opportunity for an emotional exhale and the final acceptance of loss.
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The Versace Suite, 1997
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- Versace Suite, No. 9
One of the necessary factors in doing collage is to have a steady stream of raw materials available. In the 1990’s when I worked at the National Gallery of Art, cartons of the Gallery’s exhibition catalogs would arrive from the printers with ink-test prints and other refuse paper used as packing material. These sheets held many over-printed and compromised images on quality book paper which I found worth saving for future collage use. In my studio I cut and divided these salvaged images into two stacks.
With some clues from the test print material, I discovered one stack was from a book on fashion and rock-n-roll featuring the work of Gianni Versace. The other was from a book of photographs that presented now mundane scenes of locations where brutal crimes had once been committed: a wheat field, a roadside, a storefront and so forth. I was contemplating classical versus contemporary ideas of cultural beauty and how this affects the way in which we see and feel about ourselves in today’s world.
In July 1997 news broke of Versace’s murder, I was deeply struck by the tragedy, and discovered we were the same age. Reminded I had this collage material in my studio, relating to both Versace and brutal crime, I felt compelled to create something with it. I chose to use the text from my Book of Song series to support the context and meaning of the Versace Suite.
Book of Song
1996 -1997
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- Book of Song
The painting Book of Song contains text which is a collage of quotes from many authors’ works that have had an impact on my thought. They are strung together as pearls on a necklace and express a philosophy and emotion that pervades my work. These quotes present my personal encounters and responses to love, disease, loss and the passage of time. The painting speaks specifically about the turmoil and trauma of losing a partner to AIDS.
Jean Paul Sartre wrote:
A cry of grief is a sign of the grief which provokes it,
But a song of grief is both grief itself and something other than grief.
What begins as an urgent cry becomes a song of hope.
The small screen-print and collage works have the same text and serve as the armature which sustains the composition. The collage fragments are visually hung upon the text that also serves as a scrim. The printed papers are cut and collaged as a single layer to form structures that depend upon one another. These works were composed, as Robert Motherwell had suggested, where “All the decisions in regard to it are ultimately made on the grounds of pure feeling.”
Columbia Pike Suite
1993 - 1994
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- Columbia Pike Suite, Untitled No. 1
In 1991 I was invited to participate in a group exhibition, Obsessive Imagery, at the Mansfield, Ohio Art Center. The curator was interested in my Envelope Series and wanted them specifically for this show. But by then I had moved on from that series and decided to create totally new work for the show. I used the opportunity to delve into combining envelopes with my continued interest: creating visual fields of opposing (cross hatched) collaged text, a method, which I called Visiration; the visual presentation of printed and written text. I first started using this method the summer of 1973. I always had the idea of creating this in silk-screen and this show was the catalyst to do it. The Columbia Pike Suite and other contemporaneous works are combinations of silk-screen printing, collage, and acrylic paint and titled after the location of my studio at that time.
Book Works
1990 – 1996
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- Gaze
I perceive the book, like the envelope, as a conveyor of ideas and extant states. It creates dichotomies between content vs. vehicle; interior vs. exterior; and the private vs. public realms. These inconsistencies bring home to me the disconnectedness and dependency of modern life that affects all of us. Both the book and envelope deal with words and meaning, so I chose to substitute the book for the envelope to further explore the visual possibilities. During this time I made book drawings and also incorporated actual physical books, in whole or part, into paintings and sculptures.