Rob Colman
Wellesley, MA
Rob’s work shifts between figurative and abstract painting. In recent years abstract elements appear more prominently in the figurative works as well. The artist describes this shift: “There’s a certain comfort with figurative painting where there’s a clear subject in mind. With abstract work you get more freedom but less certainty – often an exercise in orchestrated ambiguity. You don’t know where you’re going till you get there -if you get there. “
Rob found his calling to ART in a roundabout way – through an interest in Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions as shown in his sketchbooks. The sketches included da Vinci’s line drawings of people and animals in motion. “Some of these were merely scratches or squiggles on the page. Simple lines captured energy, direction, balance …in a way that was uncanny. How could da Vinci do that? How could he get the viewer to experience the power and focal point of a man swinging an ax -all in a simple line? I felt a need to figure that out. That’s what hooked me on drawing. After a lifetime of drawing, I’m still trying to figure it out. Da Vinci’s early influence is surely the reason I rely heavily on line in much of my abstract work. “
The artist muses on the process of seeing and creating art: ”You observe a subject or you have some notion of a subject in your head. You react, and then you attempt to express that reaction. Expression requires technique, but it needs to be technique informed by seeing properly, which means seeing what’s essential, grasping what it was in that subject that made you react in the first place. “
“Catching that first unencumbered impulse, whether toward a real object or an imagined one, is key to a strong painting. Picasso once said that the beginning of the painting is everything. Lose touch with that initial reaction and the painting goes nowhere. So you move from reaction to painting to reaction to painting. If you’re lucky the process takes on a life of its own. If it stalls you have to coax it into coming back.”
Many things influence Rob’s work: the light, the weather, the last conversation, the dozen unfinished works laying around calling to you. “You try to have a deliberate plan. But after you enter the studio and pick up the brush you don’t know what will happen. But it usually happens…thankfully.”
Contact Info:
Rob Colman
artistercolman@gmail.com