Spotlight Artist
Rob Reasoner
West
Artist Statement
My work is foremost about my exploration of color. My love of
color began at an early age, due in part to growing up in an area
I considered mostly colorless. The landscape was flat, mostly
desert void of flora. My early studies in drawing, painting, music
theory, and piano started a lifelong exploration of both music
and art.
The Romantic era, one of my favorite periods in music, includes
composers like Chopin, Beethoven, Bruckner, and Wagner, who
used a chromatic scale that was more tonally colorful than it had
been. It might even be said that in this period tonality expanded
beyond the primary, secondary, and tertiary worlds. This period’s
music informs the hues and values I use in my paintings, and
offers endless compositional possibilities. Some of my recent
paintings are somewhat conceptual, partly on account of rules
set for each painting. For example, Untitled 2.013 has four parts,
each consisting of the same sequence of 63 lines in 59 colors.
The painting is considered a whole, similar to a symphony, which
usually contains four movements. The rules aren’t important,
though; for me, it’s purely about the color.
Artist's Additional works
Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections
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