Robert Otto Epstein
Leaf in a Landscape
July 5 - August 11, 2013
Available in the gallery flat file:
What I’m Looking At
with Jon Feinstein featuring Robert Otto Epstein
Robert Otto Epstein is obsessed with process and repetition. His earlier work was a series of humorous paintings based on portraits from 1980s hairstyle books. His latest series are “pixel-based” paintings and illustrations that reproduce material pattern books from the 1950s, 1980s and 1990s. These images are painted by the pixel to emphasize the mechanical process of the original illustrations. A huge fan of Robert’s work, I caught up with him this past weekend to get his take on patterns, grandmas, and fashion design.
1) In your statement, you talk about reproducing “pixel by pixel,” which feels like a conversation between early video games and Chuck Close. What’s this all about?
I think reproducing the pixel appeals to me on many levels. Intellectually, and I use that term loosely, the ability to reduce a thing (in this case a pattern) into perpetually self-sufficient elements is an exercise in chemical aesthetics—the design becomes both a how-to diagram and a finished work. On an emotive level, and I use that word apprehensively since I’m not sure it’s the right one. I’ve always been nostalgic for eras before my time on earth as a conscious person.
2) Why your interest in 50’s and then 80’s/ 90’s designs specifically?
I think the designs of those eras were more elaborate and fabulous. These days you really couldn’t get away with wearing almost wallpaper-like patterns.
3) What is the relationship between the patterns and the figurative work?
The figurative work came before the patterns. More specifically, the models I painted came from knitting and fashion magazines. One day I looked through my source material and noticed the instructional charts for those exact sweaters, jackets, skirts, etc., my figures were modeling and began to draw and paint them. I work systematically, obsessively and perhaps stubbornly. I won’t try something new (artistically that is. I’m perfectly fine trying out new restaurants etc.) until I find myself in the act of changing. I say this because I won’t just sit down on a given Thursday and decide to draw a design instead of painting a pattern or a figure. It has to come naturally.
4) While I doubt there is a conscious connection to Humpty from Digital Underground, is there a significance to the over emphasized noses in your figurative paintings?
It could very well stem from my firm belief that I was a coke head in a previous life and glorifying the delivery system of my habit was a natural way to build a proper mug, or perhaps it’s because I have a really bad deviated septum and never got it fixed, or maybe just maybe it’s the result of watching the movie Roxanne way too many times, but more than likely, it’s the result of my ”self-taughtness” as an artist and that emphasizing the nose was originally a happenstance way to shape the face of my figures and quickly became a signature move.
4) How does gender identity play into your work?
Although gender is not something I’m actively conceptualizing in my work, I do feel it plays a subconscious role in my decision-making. As a child I spent a lot of time with my late grandmother (just fyi she was alive at the time). I would spend the day observing her sewing pillow cases and bed sheets, cooking old world dishes, and then we would watch soap operas. I think those memories influence my aesthetic world view.
5) You have work in a couple exhibitions up right now. Can you talk about them?
I currently have several ‘clothing design’ drawings in a show at Imogen Holloway Gallery in Saugerties, NY. I also have a couple ‘knitting chart’ drawings in a group exhibition at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Then I will have several ‘clothing design’ drawings in a group show at Kenise Barnes, Larchmont, NY, opening July 24, 2013.
with Jon Feinstein featuring Robert Otto Epstein
Robert Otto Epstein is obsessed with process and repetition. His earlier work was a series of humorous paintings based on portraits from 1980s hairstyle books. His latest series are “pixel-based” paintings and illustrations that reproduce material pattern books from the 1950s, 1980s and 1990s. These images are painted by the pixel to emphasize the mechanical process of the original illustrations. A huge fan of Robert’s work, I caught up with him this past weekend to get his take on patterns, grandmas, and fashion design.
1) In your statement, you talk about reproducing “pixel by pixel,” which feels like a conversation between early video games and Chuck Close. What’s this all about?
I think reproducing the pixel appeals to me on many levels. Intellectually, and I use that term loosely, the ability to reduce a thing (in this case a pattern) into perpetually self-sufficient elements is an exercise in chemical aesthetics—the design becomes both a how-to diagram and a finished work. On an emotive level, and I use that word apprehensively since I’m not sure it’s the right one. I’ve always been nostalgic for eras before my time on earth as a conscious person.
2) Why your interest in 50’s and then 80’s/ 90’s designs specifically?
I think the designs of those eras were more elaborate and fabulous. These days you really couldn’t get away with wearing almost wallpaper-like patterns.
3) What is the relationship between the patterns and the figurative work?
The figurative work came before the patterns. More specifically, the models I painted came from knitting and fashion magazines. One day I looked through my source material and noticed the instructional charts for those exact sweaters, jackets, skirts, etc., my figures were modeling and began to draw and paint them. I work systematically, obsessively and perhaps stubbornly. I won’t try something new (artistically that is. I’m perfectly fine trying out new restaurants etc.) until I find myself in the act of changing. I say this because I won’t just sit down on a given Thursday and decide to draw a design instead of painting a pattern or a figure. It has to come naturally.
4) While I doubt there is a conscious connection to Humpty from Digital Underground, is there a significance to the over emphasized noses in your figurative paintings?
It could very well stem from my firm belief that I was a coke head in a previous life and glorifying the delivery system of my habit was a natural way to build a proper mug, or perhaps it’s because I have a really bad deviated septum and never got it fixed, or maybe just maybe it’s the result of watching the movie Roxanne way too many times, but more than likely, it’s the result of my ”self-taughtness” as an artist and that emphasizing the nose was originally a happenstance way to shape the face of my figures and quickly became a signature move.
4) How does gender identity play into your work?
Although gender is not something I’m actively conceptualizing in my work, I do feel it plays a subconscious role in my decision-making. As a child I spent a lot of time with my late grandmother (just fyi she was alive at the time). I would spend the day observing her sewing pillow cases and bed sheets, cooking old world dishes, and then we would watch soap operas. I think those memories influence my aesthetic world view.
5) You have work in a couple exhibitions up right now. Can you talk about them?
I currently have several ‘clothing design’ drawings in a show at Imogen Holloway Gallery in Saugerties, NY. I also have a couple ‘knitting chart’ drawings in a group exhibition at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Then I will have several ‘clothing design’ drawings in a group show at Kenise Barnes, Larchmont, NY, opening July 24, 2013.