ROBERT SWAIN

INFO
Bio (PDF)
CV (PDF)
tags

EXHIBITIONS
MINUS SPACE en Oaxaca: Panorama de 31 artistas internacionales, Multiple Cultural Venues, Oaxaca, Mexico, March 15 – April 30, 2012
Pointing a Telescope at the Sun, August 6 – September 17, 2011
Robert Swain: Primary Research, October 23 – December 4, 2010
Escape from New York, The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, April 22 – May 8, 2010
Escape from New York, Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, May 8-29, 2009
Escape from New York, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia, August 3 – September 2, 2007

STATEMENT
“French painters, he would continue, may have seen a rainbow. Nature may have given them some taste for nuance, some sense of color. But I have revealed to you the great and true principles of art. I say of art! of all the arts, gentlemen, and of all the sciences. The analysis of colors, the calculation of prismatic refractions, give you the only exact relations in nature, the rule of all relations. And everything in the universe is nothing but relations. Thus one knows everything when one knows how to paint; one knows everything when one knows how to match colors.” –-Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from The Essay on the Origin of Languages

Color is a form of energy derived from the electromagnetic spectrum that stimulates our perceptual processes and is instrumental in conveying emotions. In some instances, color is culturally encoded, projecting content through symbolism or associations. The origin for such references is found in the way that the energy (wavelengths) from a particular color generates feeling; a physiological change produced by the wavelengths (energy) of a particular color or colors. The energy which emanates from green is distinctly different from the wavelengths that define red. In some cultures, pure red is associated with danger. Feelings and attitudes created by the aggressive, radiate energy, which is unique to the red part of the spectrum. When pure red is altered, its emotional attributes change, as in the stability associated with red earth colors, or the whimsical fluctuation produced by pink. In this sense, color transmits feeling(s) through the perception of energy (wavelengths) from the electromagnetic spectrum. Freed from cultural restraints, red can be experienced by itself as a phenomenon that possesses substantial content. When red is placed next to green, the contrast is heightened, as M. E. Chevreul has observed, and the experience resides in the energy generated by the convergence of these unique spectral wavelengths.

INTERVIEW
Conversations with Robert Swain, Interview with Matthew Deleget, Directed and edited by Peter Canale, Stocan Films, 2010
Part 1: New York & The Early Years
Part 2: Color System
Part 3: The Grid: Harmony & Contrast
Part 4: Technology & Process
Part 5: The Brushstroke & Beyond

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