For his first solo exhibition with KM Fine Arts, Robert Standish’s new series, Anti-Sporadic, consists of abstract paintings produced in oil applied over acrylic.
The technique embraces improvisation and specific detailing in equal measure. Gallons of monochromatic acrylic paint are poured onto canvas, building up an impasto. Then begins the free-form movement of palette knives, reshaping that impasto. The impasto dries, and comes to serve as a blueprint for the application of oil-based pigments. These are added to the trove of ridges, valleys, divots, and subtle sectional lines that have formed by the knife. The process echoes Dubuffet’s belief that “[a]rt must be born from the material and from the tool, and must preserve the trace of the tool or the tool’s battle with the material. “The finished paintings, their palettes chosen intuitively and their compositions containing many odd shapes, bespeak a color-oriented pictorial language.
Robert Standish is an American painter living and working in Los Angeles whose organic process explores the emotive effects of color, shape, and texture. Inspired by the color-field painters and Abstract Expressionism, Standish’s free-flowing use of paint is his way of interpreting metaphysics and theology through various compositions. His works can be found in the permanent collections of LACMA, JP MORGAN CHASE, The Weisman Foundation, Louis K. Meisel, Larry and Marilyn Fields, and BRYANT/ STIBEL, along with numerous acclaimed private collections and have been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, with a recent group show at Carnegie Art Museum.
