Robin Hextrum grew up in Stinson Beach, a small town across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Stinson Beach separates the biodiversity of Bolinas Lagoon from the Pacific Ocean. Living in such a beautiful and fragile ecosystem, she has been aware of environmental issues from an early age.Flowers Emerging from Another Dimension, oil on panel, 40 x 40"

Her paintings emerge from the tradition of the 17th-century Golden Age of Dutch painting when, even then, in a time of abundance, painters used references to the ephemeral nature of the abundance and urged moral rectitude. Her finely painted flowers are juxtaposed with stylized flowers expressed in a few brushstrokes. She says, “I am very interested in creating paintings that explore both representation and abstraction. I find the debates between which approach is superior to be less interesting than the possibilities that result from combining the two art approaches. Many of my paintings juxtapose different levels of resolution in a single artwork to create a feeling of chaos or uncertainty.Fractured Forest, oil on panel, 24 x 18"

“I like to create work that explores a variety of kinds of beauty,” she continues. “In some cases, this involves pulling the viewer in with conventionally beautiful flowers and then offering other visual elements that disrupt or complicate that beauty.”

In Flowers Emerging from Another Dimension, for instance, Dutch tulips emerge from pastel geometric forms along with decorative designs with a floral motif. In addition to creating that sense of “chaos or uncertainty” the different elements demonstrate her skill. She explains, “I suppose that I like the idea of showing the full array of what I can make as an artist to call the notion of fixed style into question. I know we are all capable of multiple styles as artists.

“One of the concepts I have been very interested in recently is the Feminine Sublime,” she continues. “This concept stands in contrast to traditional concepts of the sublime that imply a form of masculine ownership or mastery over nature that we see in historical landscape painting…This form of artwork can set the stage for ambiguous and uncertain narratives that can help us to acknowledge the precarity of our times and take a deeper look into our own relationship with nature.”Peonies in a Multidimensional Forest, oil on panel, 16 x 20"

In Fractured Forest, a representational stag stands within an abstracted forest. “On a formal level,” she says, “I am exploring color relationships and a variety of geometric shapes to create an organic environment. On a conceptual level, I wanted to explore our impact on the natural environment. I decided to make the stag more representational than the background but to paint it in a vibrant color to note a form of contagion in the scene. Whatever element is distorting the surrounding forest is also impacting the stag. I have been very interested in our relationship to the environment and forests.”

Her explorations can be seen in an exhibition at Abend Gallery in Denver, August 11 through September 11. 

Abend Gallery
1261 Delaware Street, Suite 2 • Denver, CO 80204
(303) 355-0950 • www.abendgallery.com 

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