Winter Park artist featured in Orlando City Hall exhibit
A new exhibit at Orlando City Hall showcases the paintings and graphic artistry of Winter Park creator Chris Robb, with one piece highlighting the through lines of 40 years of drawing, painting, printmaking, stenciling and ideas.
Eight wooden panels, each 48-by-48-inch, come together to form an installation that’s 8 feet tall and 16 feet wide. This piece, titled “GRIDS,” comprises more than 100 individual paintings and is the focal point of “Physical Currency,” the one-man exhibition featuring Robb now open in the Terrace Gallery on the first floor of City Hall.
Presented by Snap! Orlando, the show also features large-scale paintings that Robb often used his hands to paint in gestural motion and flow.
“Going into a painting, I approach it with what Buddhists call a ‘beginner’s mind.’ I start from almost nothingness and I discover the painting as I go along, a lot of times,” Robb said. “I think it’s a good thing for viewers to discover as they go.”
In certain works, it’s possible to see the influence of advertising and graphic design, while other pieces reveal nods to pop art or street art. Some paintings carry the movement and emotion of abstract expressionism.
“I think the essence is the physicality of his art, he touches everything that he does, including with his fingerprints,” said Patrick Kahn, Snap! Orlando’s founder and director.
Robb, who was born in Ohio and grew up in Winter Park, graduated from UCF in 1980 and immediately moved to New York’s Lower East Side, where he was inspired by fellow creatives.
“There was a place called Club 57. [Keith] Haring hung out there, so did [Jean-Michel] Basquiat and Kenny Scharf,” he said. “Nobody was famous then, it was a few years before anybody hit it big.”
Some works have hints of social commentary, drawing inspiration from writer Aldous Huxley, Eastern religion and philosophy. Others present glimpses into the artist’s personal past with representations of his dad or childhood photos of Robb on his skateboard.
Still, he prefers for each piece to be left wide open to interpretation.
“There’s a painter, Joan Mitchell, who said, ‘People don’t demand an explanation about music, like jazz music. With painting, for some reason they want an explanation,’ ” Robb said. “It’s a similar thing, like jazz music to me. These are the notes. You’re hitting notes as you go.”
If you go
“Chris Robb: Physical Currency,” presented by Snap! Orlando, kicks off with a public opening reception from 6:30-8 p.m. today and is on view through Sept.
11 at 400 S. Orange Ave. in Orlando. The gallery will be open 8 a.m.-9 p.m.
Monday-Friday and noon — 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. For more information, visit snaporlando.com.
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