Dorothy Robinson
DOROTHY ROBINSON
 
Biography
 
I began my art career at UC Berkeley, after receiving a BA in Geography. My interest in landscape found expression in painting, and I went on to earn an MFA in 1993. At graduation, I was awarded a travel grant and the Eisner Prize in the Creative Arts. In 2004, I received a year-long residency at the NYC-based Marie Walsh Sharpe Program, and moved to New York; I have lived in New York ever since. I have exhibited in NYC and elsewhere on the East and West Coasts, including seven solo shows in New York. Several artist residencies have been key to my development as a painter, including Caldera in Central Oregon (2004), and the Saltonstall Foundation near Ithaca, New York (2008). I received the Alexander Rutsch Painting Award in 2005, and grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation (2008) and the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation (2015). I moved to Peekskill, New York in 2014, where I have a large studio and easy access to the natural environment. My paintings are inspired in part by the visionary art of Ryder and Burchfield, and rooted in the rugged terrain of the Hudson Valley.
 
www.dorothyrobinsonart.com

Project Description
 
New Body of Work
 
I am requesting a Tree of Life grant to pay for studio time and materials needed to create a new body of work. If awarded this grant, I will have more time to work in my studio. The funding would also pay for stretchers, panels, paint, and other materials needed for this project.
 
My paintings tend not to proceed in an orderly, linear fashion, but the starting point is always my fascination with landscape. Exploring this form is a way for me to access memories, thoughts, and emotions that comprise an interior life. Given that I approach painting as an intuitive, open-ended process of exploration, it is fairly impossible to plan or outline the direction I’d like my new work to take. But my recently completed work from the past two years offers clues as to where I might want to dive in and start to explore. 
 
The compositions of some of the work presented here revolve around a center that is collapsing or emptying. Others evolved out of failed paintings that I sanded down and reworked very minimally. Several pieces show a center compressed into tightly woven brushstrokes that almost bulge with repressed energy. That the compositions reflect the past two years of isolation and anxiety has become clear. Scattered throughout the paintings are brush strokes that suggest (to me) mythological and religious figures. They appeared in the paintings unbidden, and seem to wander through a changed world, one in which they are no longer needed. Who are they, and why are they emerging from my unconscious? In my next body of work, I would like to name them, explore their histories, and find out how they connect to the world we are now struggling to comprehend.