An exhibition of Robert Bordo's recent paintings, it's always raining, will open September 6th at Alexander and Bonin. Bordo continues to play with subject matter, both reducing and expanding upon the subjective language of painting. His new works highlight the ambiguity of content through an alternately humorous and self-conscious subterfuge.
Bordo's paintings directly reflect the natural environment around him as well as the ephemeral effects of light in his studio. He filters these elements through a rich palette and a conceit of subject interchangeability. There is a fluctuation between abstraction and representation. Erasure and the shifting of space and point of view exist both in observation and in the act of making a painting; as one plane is erased (by a storm of swiped paint or brushstrokes), another location is created, quickly apprehended and fixed in time.
Lyrical obtuseness and formalist paint handling work to both obscure and reveal. The edge-to-edge brushstrokes of Heatwave all but remove any recognizable images from the painting, while in it's almost raining, a line of small dots hints at a narrative. The combination of silent spaces and named places indicates narratives of location and intention, yet the landscape is altered, erased and cropped, creating a tension between lyricism, reality and the strangeness of the natural world.
Robert Bordo was born in Montreal and has lived in New York since 1972, exhibiting there regularly since 1987. He has also exhibited with Galerie René Blouin, Montreal and Rubicon Gallery, Dublin. In 2007 he was awarded a Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. He is a professor at the Cooper Union School of Art.
Images of works by Robert Bordo as well as biographical and bibliographic information can be viewed on www.alexanderandbonin.com. For photographs or further information, please contact Ariel Phillips at 212/367-7474 or ap@alexanderandbonin.com.
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