Robin Dash: Paintings on Paintings - February 5 - March 21, 2020 - Carroll and Sons
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CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
Robin Dash: Paintings on Paintings
February 5 – March 21, 2020
Untitled, 2019, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20”
Joseph Carroll: I am so looking forward to having your paintings
on the walls in the gallery this February and March. The title
for the show - “Paintings on Paintings” - lends itself to
several interpretations and implies a history. That made me
think about our history, which goes back to somewhere around
1990 before I was involved in the art scene. But I think the
first time I saw your work was in 2000 in a show at the Allston
Skirt Gallery when it was still in Allston. Does that seem right
to you? What did your work look like at that time?
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450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
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Robin Dash: Ha! In 2000, I had a 2-person show at Allston Skirt
with Michelle Grabner.
I was doing work on canvas and paper that explored the
relationship of organic and abstract shapes to each other and
sometimes I threw in poodle woman self portraits with trails of
little bean shapes to connote a lived trajectory. Michelle and I
were shown together because color interaction, that optical buzz
and life force, was so important to each of us.
The next show I had at Allston Skirt, “Where’s Aizley”, was a
solo show in 2003 that you actually helped me install. That
installation was comprised of more than 50 shaped canvases of
varying sizes depicting a broad swathe of geometric abstraction.
They abutted each other and included some canvases that were
painted only one color. Viewers were surrounded by three walls
of canvases, floor to ceiling. All canvases were for sale for
100 bucks apiece, so people could collect one or multiples of
their choice...
JC: I thought I remembered the poodle woman self-portraits and
the floating bean shapes. Didn’t a couple of those works come
out again for a recent show at Room 83 Spring in Watertown? It
was great to see them again, like running into old friends.
And I totally remember, “Where’s Aizley”. In 2003, you were
working on the paintings in a studio here in the South End on
Albany Street. Most of the canvases were small and you made them
over time and then placed them up on the wall. They spread over
the wall organically, one relating to the next, each one
building on the context of the paintings adjacent. The
arrangement of the paintings became as important as the
individual works and I think you brought me in to install them
on the walls of the Allston Skirt Gallery to reflect how they
were hung in the studio. That was when the gallery was on the
third floor of 450 Harrison. And I’m happy to live with two
paintings from that show. The way the paint goes over the edges
of those early canvases reminds me of the layered edges of the
new canvases.
It does strike me though, how you can almost say the paintings
from “Where’s Aizley” were made in response to each other, like
those now included in “Paintings on Paintings.” Only this time,
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CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
the paintings are actually on top of previous paintings, as well
as within the context of each other.
And I’ve shown a few of these paintings before in previous
iterations, if we look back through the layers. You can still
see some floral images on some canvases that were included in
the group exhibition, “No Boys Allowed”, back in 2016. What
compels you to paint on top of your previous paintings?
RD: Hmmm, important question, Joe.
Sometimes I save a painting because I absolutely love it and
know it’s gonna be that way forever.
Sometimes, I have a painting kicking around and I just know I
can play with it some more and it will be more alive to me.
And sometimes, the paintings that I thought would stay the way
they were forever, start “talking” to me and I suddenly know
what I’ve got to do to them.
I guess I feel that painting is an experience and thought
process that goes through life with me. It puts me in touch with
feelings, music, movement, sensations and visions of early life.
It is tied into the intensity I feel about injustice and also
bolsters my commitment to fighting it.
So, why all of that on top of an initial work, instead of
starting a new canvas? In a sense, the layering gives new life
to the canvas. As Dylan says, “...It’s life, and life only”.
I love the on-goingness of the work, what makes it more than an
object, it’s history & capacity to grow and change. Sometimes,
magically, that can happen at first blush. But, other times the
dialogue between the work and myself seems to be continuously
fluid and open, which brings us to the paintings in your current
show...
JC: We have nine paintings in the show - each one shows the
build up of layers over time. For those folks seeing the
paintings for the first time, the lives of the canvas may be
more difficult to read.
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450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
Your paintings in “No Boys Allowed” were what we referred to as
the flower paintings. Remnants of the flowers are still evident
in a couple of the paintings on the wall now.
In this painting (all are untitled) the flowers are still
visible, whereas in others, the flower layer has been completely
painted over.
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This painting had just one flower and that was painted over.
I’m not sure how to refer to the painting versions - the surface
is obviously layered, and layered over time. Each layer was a
finished painting - finished until you or the painting decided
that more work needed to be done. There were several paintings
on each canvas before the flowers happened. Were the flowers the
only points in the painting that were figurative? I have to say,
the flowers were a bit of a surprise when I first saw them. I
think the earlier paintings referenced abstract painting - some
had washes of color, or Pollock-like splatters and ribbons of
color. Despite the pictorial difference of each painting, there
is always a sense of physicality to the way the paint is
applied. Aside from the flowers, it looks like you are inspired
by mid-century American abstraction. Is that true?
RD: Yes, that is true, but true in different ways and at
different points in time.
I was born right into Abstract Expressionism, in the mid-1950s
in New York City. I remember seeing Pollocks in person as a
child. I regularly visited the Pollocks, Krasners, deKoonings,
Hofmanns, Frankenthalers, Motherwells, Gorkys and Gustons at
MoMA (which was referred to as “The Modern” when I was a kid)
and the Whitney, in the afternoons after high school, before I
went to night classes at the Art Students League and the New
School.
Those paintings spoke to me and I felt deep pleasure being with
them.
Later, when I studied with Ellen Banks at the Museum School and
then Sidney Tillim, Pat Adams & Phillip Wofford at Bennington, I
was able to fully engage that visual language, as well as other
considerations in color, space, gesture, composition and subject
matter.
As time has gone on, some of those considerations remain and
some have changed or shifted, as you’ve seen in a broad spectrum
of my work (work on paper, video, installations and sculpture,
as well as paintings). I think it’s funny that you thought of
the “flower paintings” as figurative. In some instances, like a
lone flower, I guess they were self-portraits. In most others,
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the flowers were just a way to slow down the gesture. I was
interested in the optical buzz of those little chunks of shaped
and saturated color — the visual equivalent of microtones.
In the past few years, I’ve wanted the paintings to get closer
and trigger bigger shapes, space and structure. I enjoy playing
with what is revealed and concealed in unexpected ways, as well
as discovering offbeat color relationships. The work of Myron
Stout, Paul Feeley and Tony Smith is particularly meaningful to
me.
I am immersed in developing the life of a large shape by
switching to a very small brush and slowly and carefully
rendering its contour. Bits and pieces of the prior little
flower shapes take on a whole new meaning in this context, as do
the larger brushed and spattered areas of yore. So, in these
paintings on paintings, it’s all there somehow, somewhere, even
if it’s buried or only peeking out a bit.
And THERE you have it...
Robin Dash: Paintings on Paintings is on view at Carroll and
Sons, Boston, from February 5 – March 21, 2020.
This work has been supported by grants from The Artist’s
Resource Trust.
Dash 6
CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
24 x 20”
Dash 7
CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
16 x 20”
Dash 8
CARROLL AND SONS
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INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
32 x 22”
Dash 9
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
20 x 20”
Dash 10CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 30
Dash 11CARROLL AND SONS
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
20 x 20”
Dash 12CARROLL AND SONS
450 HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON ROOM 404, MASSACHUSETTS 02118
PHONE: 617-482-2477
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
18 x 14”
Dash 13CARROLL AND SONS
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
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Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 26”
Dash 14CARROLL AND SONS
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
Untitled
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 20”
Dash 15CARROLL AND SONS
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
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ROBIN DASH
EDUCATION
MFA, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
BA, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Paintings on Paintings, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA
2013 In Plain Air, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA
2007 Don’t Climb the Pyramids, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA
2003 Where’s Aizley?, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA
1999 Angel Orensanz Foundation, New York, NY
1997 Ludmilla Baczynsky Gallery, New York, NY
1995 Sunnen Gallery, New York, NY
1988 Orphanos Gallery, Boston, MA
1986 Southern Vermont College, Bennington, VT
TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2019 Robin Dash & Diane Atsuko Suda, Work on Paper &
Explorations in Ikebana, Artists in Residence, room 83
Spring, Watertown, MA
2000 Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA (with Michelle Grabner)
THREE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2007 Flip Viola and the Blurs, Bill Viola, Robin Dash and Joan
Nelson
Triple Candie, NY, NY
2004 Off the Shelf - Drawings by Robert Amesbury, Robin Dash and
Rachel Perry Welty, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY, NY
curated by Joseph Carroll
Dash 16CARROLL AND SONS
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PHONE: 617-482-2477
INFO@CARROLLANDSONS.NET
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 Un Cochon de Métier, room 83 Spring, Watertown, MA,
curated by Monique Johannet
Matereality, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2017 Garbage Necklace, How’s Howard Gallery, Boston, MA
Boston Art Book Fair, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston,
MA
Peace is Power, Yoko Ono collaborative installation,
Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY
Dance Me Loose, How’s Howard Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 No Boys Allowed, Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston, MA
2014 Artists Choose Artists, Abrazo Interno Gallery, The
Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center NY, NY
2013 Wrap Around 2, curated by Renee Riccardo, ARENA@Suite 806,
89 Fifth Ave, New York, NY
2009 Eye World, Case Space, Triple Candie, NY, NY, curated by
Emily Cheng and Michelle Loh
2007 HOMEGROWN, David Krut Projects, NY, NY, curated by Renee
Riccardo
White Light, motel gallery, Portland, OR
2006 Global Pop, selections from the Boston Drawing Project,
Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
THE DIN, James Hull Fine Art, Boston, MA, curated by Doug
Weathersby
Artist’s Resource Trust: The First Ten Years, Trustman Art
Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA
29th Small Works, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, New
York, NY, juried by Jack Shainman
2005 Picturing Words: selections from the Boston Drawing
Projectat Bernard Toale Gallery, University Gallery at
UMass Lowell, Lowell, MA
PAPER!AWESOME!, Pigman Gallery, San Francisco, CA curated
by Brion Nuda Rosch
honey bunches, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA
2004 Word, Bronx River Art Center, NY, NY, curated by Paul
Laster and Renee Riccardo
Boston Drawing Project, New Work, New Faces, Bernard Toale
Gallery, Boston, MA
“Art Words”, Mario Diacono Fine Art, Boston, MA
2003 South Enders 2, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts,
Boston, MA
Gone Fishin’, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA
Dash 17CARROLL AND SONS
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2002 It’s My Pleasure, Fort Point Arts Community Gallery,
Boston, MA
2001 The Drawing Show, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the
Arts, Boston, MA, curated by Bill Arning
“What I did this summer...”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston,
MA
2000 Twice Born: Beauty, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the
Arts, Boston, MA curated byShelly Bancroft
1999 Apocalypse 1999, Williamsburg Art & Historical Center,
Brooklyn, NY
Close To You, The Gallery @ Green Street, Jamaica Plain,
MA, curated by Sheila Pepe
Sprung Rhythm, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, MA
A Quiet Revolution, The Lois Foster Exhibition of Boston
Area Painters, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,
Waltham, MA curated by Susan Stoops
The Edge of Vision/The Edge of Sight, Montserrat College of
Art Gallery, Beverly, MA curated by Barbara O’Brien
1998 Third Annual Small Works Exhibition and Benefit, PS 122
Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Berkshire Museum,
Pittsfield, MA curated by Laura Hoptman
1995 Venturing So Close, SOHO 20, New York, NY curated by Jane
Harris
COLLABORATION AND SET DESIGN
2000 Tricksters & Heroes, New England Philharmonic
Tsai Performance Center, Boston, MA
Heart Piece, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,
Waltham,MA
1999 Fabula, with Spencer/Colton, Teatro Rasi, Ravenna, Italy
1998 Prairie Du Chien, Merrick Theatre, Brandeis University,
Waltham,MA
The Lost Tensions, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,
Waltham,MA
1997 Can You Hear A Motion? , with Marty Ehrlich, Stan
Strickland and Erica Hunt
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham,MA
1996 TWILIGHT: Los Angeles, 1992
Concord Academy Performing Arts Center, Concord, MA
Dash 18CARROLL AND SONS
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One Day 4 Contemporary Arts, American Repertory Theatre,
Cambridge, MA
Used Cars, with Ricky Ford, Karen Klein, Brandeis
University, Waltham,MA
Umai’s Journey, Boston Musica Viva, The Longy School of
Music, Cambridge, MA
Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Boston Musica Viva, The Longy
School of Music, Cambridge, MA
1995 The Automobile Graveyard, Jordan Hall, New England
Conservatory, Boston, MA
1994 The Big Window, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh,
Scotland
1990 Davidsbundlertanze, with Stephen Drury, Ruth Birnberg,
Boston University, Boston, MA
1988 Red Riding, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston,
MA
AWARDS
2019 Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic
Community Foundation
2005 Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic
Community Foundation
2002 Creative Center Fellowship, New York, NY
2000 Triangle Artists’ Workshop Fellowship, World Trade Center,
New York, NY
1999 Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant, Berkshire Taconic
Community Foundation
1995 Brookline Council for the Arts and Humanities grant
REVIEWS
2018 Elizabeth Michelman, Un Cochon de Métier (Painting is
Wicked Hard), Artscope Magazine, Sept. 1, 2018
2007 Reviews, Francine Koslow Miller tema celeste, Issue 124
Nov./Dec.
2007 A Touch with Abstraction, Cate McQuaid The Boston Globe,
September 13, 2007
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ARTIST REGISTRY
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry, White Columns, New
York, NY
COLLECTIONS
Bank of America, Boston MA
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, Brookline MA
Brandeis University, Women's Studies Research Center, Waltham MA
Fidelity Investments, Boston MA
New England Conservatory of Music, Boston MA
The Ritz Carlton, Boston MA
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