JEFF ROBINSON

After studying sculpture at Kansas City Art Institute, Jeff Robinson shifted his focus to painting, stating, “The change in medium suited my temperament. Painting allowed me to get to ideas quicker.” He stayed in Kansas City throughout the ‘80s participating in the burgeoning art scene at the Random Ranch, Left Bank and Dolphin galleries. Completing a decade of work in the Midwest, Robinson was ready to move back East. In 1992 he was living in New York City and painting at a prodigious rate. His figurative work took a backseat to symbols – flags of his own invention and a growing personal iconography of keys, horses and bridges among others. The works were “adulations of symbols, odes on objects.” Building up a canvas in layers of paint and then coaxing an image from this rich surface, the work took on an almost sculptural quality.

Within his first months in New York, Robinson began exhibiting at the Meisner/SoHo Gallery. Concurrently, New York was experiencing a rebirth of art and Robinson was invited to exhibit with GenArt, Oracle and the Project Room of the Jason McCoy Gallery on 57th St.

LIBRIS

Robinson’s studio in Greenwich Village was just four blocks away from the Strand Bookstore. One collector remarked, “When Jeff isn’t painting, he’s reading.” Robinson spent hours combing the “18 miles of books” as the store boasts. In 1997, his love of literature and his proximity to the Strand Bookstore informed his ongoing series, Libris. Initially, intimate paintings of stacked books were his main passion. Over the years, the series has grown substantially both in scale and content. Diptychs and triptychs expanding 15 feet are now part of the portfolio as well as spines revealing titles of favorite books.