March 11 – March 27, 2013
Willis Smith Galleries, Ringling College of Art and Design
Meet the Artists: Friday, March 15 (6pm – 8pm)
The work in Robin Cody’s exhibition represents several avenues of inquiry. One series is related to Robin’s semester of paid professional leave that culminated in a Visiting Artist’s Residency at the American Academy in Rome. In this series of formally staged still life arrangements, objects are placed before an old mirror and seen simultaneously from two points of view. The use of the mirror is used as a reference to the traditional “window” of Western painting and to the craft and artifice with which the representational painter both deceives and convinces the viewer. A second series concerns still-lifes and landscape studies on paper. A third series concerns landscape sketches and small oil paintings done in New England.
Peter Brown’s exhibition consists of two distinct but overlapping series of paintings.
ROME Series: A few years ago Peter became interested in geometric patterns and their interactions of shapes and colors. When he was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2010, he completed on-site research on the Cosmati mosaics that were created for Roman churches in the 12th and 13th centuries. The paintings in this series were begun in Rome and influenced by the Cosmati and ancient Roman mosaics that he saw there.
WOVEN Series: Definition of the word Woven: “a pattern of or method for interlacing; to have moved or proceeded in a winding course”
These works have been structured to emphasize the formal aspects of the colors and shapes. As the colors weave in and out, the implied forms and spaces are meant to evolve. Spatial ambiguity has been intentionally emphasized in the designs, allowing the figure/ground relationships to shift and move as one looks at the images over an extended period of time.
Robin Cody has taught at Ringling College for twenty years. She obtained her BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts, continuing her studies in observational painting at Boston University. She received her MFA in painting from Queens College, City University of New York, where she studied with noted figurative painters Gabriel Laderman and Rosemarie Beck. Originally from New England, Robin spends each summer in Maine. She exhibits her work nationally and is represented by galleries in Florida and Maine.
Peter Brown has a B.S. in Human Development from the University of Massachusetts and an M.F.A in Painting from Indiana University. He also studied at Massachusetts College of Art and Boston University. Peter has taught at Ringling College of Art and Design for 23 years. He was the Program Director of the first-year Foundation Studies Program at the college for 10 years. He is the recipient of two Florida State Individual Artist Fellowships. In 2010, he was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.
Willis Smith Galleries First Floor of the Academic Center
2700 North Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34234 / (941) 351-5100
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