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Email PageFoul Play
January 31, 2008- March 8, 2008
Reception: January 31, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Robert Brinker
Sara Tecchia Roma New York
529 W 20th St"I love the expression 'foul play.' It's just a ball out of bounds, isn't it? Or a poke in the nethers. But the sound, the associations. Foul - a word meaning noxious, polluted, stinking, vile. And play, such a happy, childish word, all smiles and blond curls in the sunlight." - Cathleen Schine, "The Dead and The Naked"
Sara Tecchia Roma New York is pleased to present a solo-exhibition of the work of Robert Brinker entitled "Foul Play." Like the phrase itself, this new series of graphite and cut paper is a mass of contradictions.
As a child, Brinker was presented by his parents with the toy Trace and Color, which gives the illusion of creation while actually dictating the end product. It is his earliest memory of creative experience. "The idea," says Brinker, "was that you would trace the different characters to 'create' your own 'original,'" when actually the only autonomy was with the later alterations of each set scene. "A similar process," he says, "has propelled me into my current work almost 30 years later." Brinker's cut drawings mirrors this toy thematically and visually. He imposes strict rules and regulations on his work - a "definite performance and sequence of actions," he says - but beneath this sobriety of process lies an unplanned yet innate distrust of such boundaries.
At first glance Brinker's work is vaguely abstract, almost innocuous. But when the eye follows the feuille of cut paper and the dark graphite tracings, a completely different picture emerges. Shadowed by the layering of media and the calm yet chaotic scramble of images, the sparkling stars, bows and placid flowers slowly morph into more startling figurations: phalluses, orifices and raw and oddly sexual activities. With Brinker's work, seeing is not believing but unveiling. The power of the work rests on the shock of discovery, mixed with self-doubt, of those encountering uncharted territories of visual recognition.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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