Evan: FROM 'VISUAL FEAST' TO VISUAL SHORTHAND.
THAT'S HOW ROCHESTER ARTIST ROBERT MARX REFERS
TO HIS OWN STYLE. MARX DRAWS, PAINTS AND SCULPTS
-- DEPICTING EVERYDAY LIFE AND THE STRUGGLES
OF THE HUMAN CONDITION THROUGH AN OFTEN ABSTRACT
STYLE.
HIS WORK IS DISPLAYED IN SOME OF THE BEST
ART MUSEUMS IN THE COUNTRY. LET'S SIT DOWN
WITH HIM FOR A MOMENT AND TAKE A PEEK INSIDE
HIS PROCESS.
Robert Marx: I am Robert Marx. I have lived
in Rochester now since about the 1970s. It
isn't that I think up a painting and then
paint it, that I just start working and things
occur in that actual process of painting and
so, one painting then leads to another. The
other thing is that I work on, twenty or twenty-five
paintings all at the same time, so whatever
triggers something, whatever reminds me of
something, coming to the studio something
might occur along the way and that has effect
on what painting I might pull out of the rack
and begin to work on. So it's a continuing
kind of process, and I think it would be almost
suicidal if I didn't have that kind of thing
because I never have to worry about coming
to the studio, there's always to do. I'm constantly
surprised that I'm doing this, which is really
very nice because I don't get bored. I hear
people say, 'oh, I wish I could do, I wish
I could, I wish that I something,' I don't
have that, which is really very nice. And
for a while I was painting out the figure,
because I really didn't know whether I wanted
to do that, until I figured that you know,
if they kept popping in then this was silly
to keep painting them away and I might as
well start using them. I'm not diminishing
the figure like for instance the abstract
tradition of where that first started was
remove, remove, remove, remove and eventually
you became an abstract painter. So, it was
interesting that Picasso never stayed, he
went right back to the figure of some sort.
That's about the way it works. And it's not
surface, it has to be looked after and thought
about.
Interviewer: Give me your most beautiful face.
Robert: I don't have one.
Evan: THAT VIDEO WAS PRODUCED AS A PART OF
THE ANNUAL MAKERS AND MENTORS EXHIBIT GOING
ON RIGHT NOW AT THE ROCHESTER CONTEMPORARY
ARTS CENTER, GO CHECK IT OUT. YOU CAN GET
MORE INFORMATION AT: ROCHESTER-CONTEMPORARY-DOT-ORG.
