robert petrick

new york, NY, United States

About robert petrick

RobertPetrick.com is currently a New York City based painter, with interests also based in Digital art, Photography & Letter Form Design.________________ In 1984, Robert Petrick stenciled two designs on walls along Avenue B. Capturing the zeitgeist of the time, EXIST / EXIT and NOWHERE / NOW HERE were photographed and featured in Vogue magazine. To them, the images exemplified graffiti as art rather than graffiti as vandalism, a concept that was gaining international attention after the release of Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style and a number of hit songs and music videos. Back in the studio, Petrick has continued to work with this spirit in two important series, which draw a link between the street culture of the East Village, where he has lived for 68 years, and the power of language, which he has worked with his entire life. His Word Paintings examine language in its purest written form. When they are painted on the streets, they represent a democratic type of communication. On canvas, they provide a space for more intimate reflection on the marks that increasingly define our world and interactions. In his Graffiti Painting series, Petrick manipulates the semiotics of graffiti writing, stretching and compressing both letters and meaning into asemic shapes. In the aggregation of symbols, piled and stacked on top of each other within the confines of the canvas, one can read the density of the city, a multitude of voices in a confined urban environment. They are not the ordered squiggles of the Keith Haring / LA2 collaborations; in these works, the raw gestures of written communication are compressed into a chaotic yet elegant jigsaw, flattened of both time and space. In both series, a concrete interpretation is carried through the transformation but is also altered and rendered ambiguous. These are acts of aggression against order and conformity, reclaiming a landscape made hostile by city planners and the swagger of corporations, advertising firms and domineering architecture, which begs the question: are these simply works art, or do they hint at linguistic warfare?

Education:

Tyler School of Art, Pennsylvania

Exhibitions:

Solo Shows
February Jan 9-Feb 5 2020 CBG gallery Chelsea NYC "WordArt" Painting, Mobiles, Sculpture & Prints

February 14-March 13 2019 CBG gallery Chelsea NYC
"Point of Least Resistance " Line Painting series

May 21, 2015,thru July 21, 2015 @IFAC "Compression " Paintings - Curated by Lee Wells

January, 2014, Peanut Underground Show title "read just the truth - readjust the truth...Language & Painting". Curator Katie Peyton

December, 2013, IFAC "Gestural Geometry" (www.ifac-arts.com). Curaror Lee Wells

June, 2012, Solo show, 307 Gallery (Now called "Carter Burden Gallery"),
Chelsea , NYC ["signs, marks & gestures". Curator Marlena Vacaro

August, 2008, Tompkins Library solo exhibit NYC. Curated by myself
"Word Art"

First showing in NYC In 1984 he had a solo exhibit the Red Bar gallery.

Group shows:

CBG gallerey in Chelsea NYC Feb 14-March 13th, 2019 Curaror Marlena Vaccaro

Group show Carter- Burden
"A Shared Interest"
Chelsea, NYC
2018

IFAC Gallery NYC
March, 2015

Tompkins Square Library (Gallery)
February 2015

IFAC Gallery NYC
October, 2014

IFAC Gallery NYC
May, 2014

Group show Carter- Burden
Chelsea, NYC
2013

robert petrick

About robert petrick

Education:

Exhibitions:

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