Door to Balcony, Robert Kobayashi 1984
The heart of Robert Kobayashi’s new exhibit is three pointillist paintings from the 1980’s: Prince Street, Door to Balcony and Cat and the Fiddle. The pointillist technique makes the figures and images shimmer with life. The meticulous touch of the tip of the brush directs the eye from the particular to the whole. Through this, perspective perpetually changes, providing volume and movement. There is fullness in the wings of the angels, a relief in their arrival and escape, and the delicate hovering touch. There is a changing of the light in the passing of time, yet each image remains fixed in the immediacy of the everlasting.
Cat and the Fiddle, Robert Kobayashi
The pointillist pieces introduce the work that has dominated Kobi’s career through the past five decades. The tip of the brush has been changed to the point of nails. The palette has transformed into the diligent taps of the balanced head of a hammer. With these simple tools, his vibrant mind and unwavering patience, Kobi transforms discarded tin into the shapes of his imagination.
There is a miracle in taking the neglected and forgotten and transforming it into expressions of subtle tenderness. In Kobi’s sculptures, unique and personable blooms extend on outstretching stems. Grass undulates beneath a billowing cloud towering beyond the horizon. In the still lifes, there is an iridescent light on the unmistakable ripeness of the fruit as the forms are softly set in quiet correspondence.
Prince Street, Robert Kobayashi
Kobi’s work is more than arrangement, more than creation. Kobi’s work is renewal. It is the eternal cycles of nature. As the fallen leaves of past autumns rise in the bright blooms of spring, Kobi breathes new life into the mundane, a life distilled through his patient and devoted artistry. Through this renewal, wings open with inspiration and the angels arise.
The exhibit will run from August 6 – 30 at Moe’s Meat Market, a gallery, at 237 Elizabeth Street in NYC.
Opening reception will be Thursday, August 7 between 6 and 8 PM.
Garrett Buhl Robinson will read poetry in the gallery on Saturday, August 9 at 3 PM.
Garrett Buhl Robinson is a poet and novelist living in New York City. www.garrettrobinson.us
