rob carpenter:
paths of moving points

Aug 1 - 31, 2023

FIRST WEDNESDAY OPENING: Aug 2, FROM 6 - 9PM

ARTICULATE ARTIST TALK: SUNDAY, Aug 6, AT 4PM.

NORMAL GALLERY HOURS: TUE - SUN, 12PM - 6PM

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Rob likes to make marks on a page. This is at the heart of his studio practice. He’s the kind of artist who works in his studio every day and treats his heavily layered drawings as a form of meditation. He can get lost in the swoops, swirls, and squiggles the way a child might lose themselves in the details of creating a prized sandcastle. There is a delight in the tedium that it takes to create this kind of visual tapestry. When referencing his own work he always takes his audience back to the very element of line. He is interested in it conceptually as the only man-made element in visual arts. With the other elements: shape, form, and color being found in nature. It is the line, and line alone, that is at once abstract and concrete.

“Paths of Moving Points” is the title I chose for this body of work in the year 2012. Though each drawing has the same title, I add at the signature line the month, day and year, to distinguish one drawing from another.
“The path of a moving point” is the art textbook definition of the element of line. You put your pen or pencil on a piece of paper and you make a point. When you move that pen or pencil, the point becomes a line. So that is what I do. Over the course of a drawing, I draw a lot of lines… lots and lots of lines. Line is the only man-made element of art. The other elements are shape, texture, color and value, and they all exist in nature. Lines do not. Line, that rogue element, can be used to visually create a shape, suggest texture, and simulate value. It can have color too. Line is one “badass” element of art.” - Carpenter

Carpenter earned his B.S. in History at Mississippi State University and M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing at Louisiana State University. He has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine and New American Paintings and has received two grants for outdoor sculpture and painting. His work has been featured nationally at the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco, the William Dale Gallery in New Orleans, The Medici Center for the Visual Arts in Philadelphia, and The Metropolitan Gallery in Arlington, VA. He also served as a Professor of Painting and Drawing at Nicholls State University (Thibodaux, LA) from 1991 to 2012.

This exhibition is presented alongside the latest works from Paul Dean, Amy James, & Heather Ryan Kelley. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during regular gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from Aug 1 - 31, 2023.