No time to explain

No time to explain
by Paul Robas

Paul Robas’ work starts from the inherent fascination toward small, seemingly insignificant interactions and the way they are affected by global events that, in a way, change and shape the human condition. Events that are universal in character and sometimes intimate but nonetheless interrelated. This mundane imagery, influenced by “external forces”, interacting through associations and symbols, creates a new narrative, a new language within a broader contextual spectrum. Through the pictorial process these events are modified by subjective vision, inaccurate recollection, or are simply reimagined. The result is a recontextualized representation that the viewer is invited to interpret. Inspiration comes from casual experiences that are documented through photography or sketches, like a visual diary. The figures that populate his works are depicted both accurately and abstractly, creating a representative dynamic that challenges the traditional aesthetics of painting.
It is also a reflection and an attempt to make sense of the world, to create a narrative from fragments of everyday life. Most of the paintings have an eerie, dreamlike atmosphere. The shifting figures evoke a faded or uncertain memory. Robas nurtures an interest in the way social events are becoming increasingly more abstract and irrational, and in how people often just play along without fully grasping their surroundings. In this accelerated situation there is often no time to explain what is happening, only a way to cope and keep going while trying to make sense of what is happening around us.
Robas’ artistic research has as its starting point people and objects, scenes from the surrounding environment, which he abstracts in his paintings with intense colors and on different layouts and levels of visual and matter perception. In the paintings, the motifs depicted seem easy to decipher at first; an object or action is shown that resembles a pattern which is familiar to everyday living. The colors and cutout of the works challenge the viewer, depending on the position one takes: up close or from a distance, either as part of a group of works or as a single painting, the character of the images changes in terms of subject matter and by surface effect. He looks critically at the social, political and cultural aspects of society. When he works, he tries to decipher the environment in his own way, then attempts to weave an interesting conversation with the viewer, which leads him to other insights to transfer the images into a social context and a different discourse. His main medium is painting; color is a central part of his work and research. Layer after layer and in various consistencies the image is brought back to the support with different shapes and tactile materials. In this way he tries to transfer the historically burdened traditional medium of painting into the present, posing and questioning where painting is going today and whether it still has social relevance. (VVB)

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PAUL ROBAS

Paul Robas, born in 1989 in Baia Mare (Romania) graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, majoring in painting.
His works have been exhibited in various spaces including New Jörg in Vienna, 5020 in Salzburg, Elektrohalle Rohmberg in Salzburg, NewNow Artspace in Frankfurt and Matca Artspace in Cluj. His artistic approach is related to color, surfaces and how their combination determines the atmosphere of the spaces he reconstructs. In his paintings, which range from abstract to figurative, he explores the relevance...

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WORKS

CUT IT OUT, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

CUT IT OUT, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

CUT IT OUT, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

HOLD ON TIGHT, 2022

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

HOLD ON TIGHT, 2022

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

HOLD ON TIGHT, 2022

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

UNTITLED, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

UNTITLED, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

UNTITLED, 2023

100 x 70, acrylic on canvas

UNTITLED, 2023

40 x 30 x 2, acrylic on wood

UNTITLED, 2023

40 x 30 x 2, acrylic on wood

UNTITLED, 2023

40 x 30 x 2, acrylic on wood