by Lorenzo Pereira
Robert Kingston | Going to San Francisco, 2015 | Acrylic on canvas | 48 x 60 inchesAnother great show at San Francisco-based Dolby Chadwick Gallery! This time, the Gallery organizes a Robert Kingston exhibition – an exhibition where the latest work by this great artist will be shown. Kingston has been working with abstraction for years now – work in this style has evolved over the years in a special manner, and is different than other artists. The most important question while looking the artist’s works is: What can be accomplished using the paint? Kingston’s evocative paintings have all characteristics of Abstract Expressionism, while beautiful compositions are so “deep” they create impression of separate spaces on canvas. This is the fourth show with the gallery for Kingston, and be sure not to miss it!
Robert Kingston | The Conjuror, 2016 | Acrylic on canvas | 60 x 48 inchesRobert Kingston is a Los Angeles-based artist, best-known for his lyrical, abstract paintings created primarily in acrylic. He earned his BFA from California State University Long Beach in 1986 and his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 1988. During his career, he has been exhibited all over the United States. He was born in Sungei Gerong, Indonesia, which is very important if we want to understand his art better. Kingston traveled a lot during his childhood, which influenced his self-identification as a cosmopolitan citizen. As he says: It was a special kind of experience…I learned that there are a lot of different ways to think and to live. Once he moved back to California, he decided to be a painter. Kingston’s works are improvisational. With broad gestural marks, he begins the process. Later on, he refines and edits the composition. These moves create images similar to those that can be found in Pre-Historic cave paintings.
Robert Kingston | Silently the Birds Fly Through Us, 2016 | Acrylic and graphite on canvas | 60 x 48 inchesSo, what the visitors of the Dolby Chadwick Gallery will have an opportunity to see? A number of beautiful paintings that are also influenced by classical art and literature, the works of ancient Greece and Rome. Cy Twombly, for example, inspired Kingston’s style a lot. As Twombly, Kingston’s process is also characterized by layered painting. Similarly as Twombly, Kingston is inspired by myth, legend, and poetry, which is visible in his I Do Not Know More Than the Sea Tells Me (2012). Starting with deconstructed elements of the composition, the final result of every Kingston’s work is the unification of the image – a viewer is confronted with produced synergistic energies coming out from the composition. In addition, he thinks of his works as landscapes, or “dreamscapes,” feeling his work aims for a spot “somewhere between Twombly and Turner.” For example, the use of blue provides us with areas of lighter color that act as a reflection.
Robert Kingston | Dragonfly, 2015 | Acrylic on canvas | 60 x 48 inches
We really had an opportunity to enjoy some great exhibitions recently at Dolby Chadwick Gallery. Let us just mention the exhibition of Charley Brown entitled Divergence that was on view until May 28; the exhibition of Edwige Fouvry titled Ô temps, suspends ton vol! (was on view in April; or the exhibition of Ann Gale that was on view in March. So, be sure not to miss the Robert Kingston exhibition! It will be on view from June 2 until July 2, 2016 at Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco.