The Art of Chad Robertson

By: Chase Whitman | December 18, 2009 |

Art often poses the question of delineation. How should we be portrayed to others? And how does the act of representing someone in an artwork affect the way one is understood? Chad Robertson’s work dissects the way we see ourselves in this modern context. He is not a photorealistic painter he is a video realist. The relevance of this manner of depiction could not be more appropriate now that we exist as sound bites, Facebook pages and reality shows while simultaneously living as emotionally driven organisms. He creates dynamic portraits of our own polyhedral self-image. I’ve been a huge fan of his work ever since I saw his exhibition, In the moment, at L.A.’s Sixspace Gallery in 2003. I spoke with him recently and was able to ask so many of the questions I’ve had for the past six years.

What are your thoughts on photorealism and its place in art history?
“Photo realism” seems like almost an antiquated term now. It definitely has its time and place in art history — the heyday being the ’70s. But now with technology infused in our daily lives and the ubiquity of photography used in the practice of so many artists, the term now seems a bit lost. So many painters that practice representational painting use photographs in one way or another to achieve their artistic ends. Although using a photograph in one way or another as a reference doesn’t make it photorealism, people become confused with that term and the art movement when photography is involved with painting.

Your work is an excellent reflection of the statement, “Painting is technology.” What do you feel is the relevance of technology and painting? How does your work reflect your thoughts about this theory?
Technology and painting have always had a symbiotic relationship, using reflections and mirrors, projection, photography, film and computers. Painters have always embraced technology to assist them. Technology or to be more specific, Photoshop, gives me infinite choices when I make an image. The Internet is, of course, the ultimate research tool to find certain images to work with. But technology for me has a stopping point. I can create something I feel is dynamic in the computer, and it could stop there. But the thing that makes it come alive for me and really gives it a presence is paint. The image goes to a whole other level for me when the human hand and paint get involved. Imagery becomes fluid and changes much more dramatically in the painting phase.

Your work offers such a vigorous argument for those who feel painting is dead or everything has been done before. What do you think about that?
I think every painting is a vigorous argument [to] the first statement. I really can’t believe the “painting is dead” statement is still said these days. To me it’s like asking is classical music dead? Or opera? What about love songs? It’s an irrelevant argument. Painting will never be dead just like pop, rock ’n’ roll, rap music, whatever. Why has there never been a big movement to say sculpture is dead or conceptual art or minimalism?

I think in this day and age, everything pretty much has been done. That statement is true not just in art but pop culture in general. I think because of this, everything is valid no matter what kind of art you make. The dust has settled, and there is room for all kinds of art. It’s a level playing field now.

The trend in some contemporary painting is a nonchalant mark-making approach to creating or discovering some new discourse (i.e. Peter Doig, Jonathan Meese and Martin Kippenberger); your work goes so far in the other direction. How relevant are traditional painting techniques today?
I think all good painting is almost a practice of nonchalant mark-making, I think in some cases the marks come together and form a more cohesive representational image — at least I think so with my work. When I am painting something, I never approach it like I am literally painting the object I am trying to depict, especially with this newer work where there are so many images overlapping and colliding; it would just be too hard! The approach I take is discovering my imagery through shapes and colors. I view my reference material in this way as opposed to looking at it literally. In the end when I stand back, marks and strokes fall into place to form one image and another on top of it, etc. Going back to my earlier answer, I really think all painting techniques are quite valid in this day and age — traditional, nontraditional, etc.

Influences?
I say this a lot, but I feel music is probably my biggest influence — even above visual art. How music makes me feel is something I strive to capture in my art-making. And traveling. The feeling of new experiences, new places — I really crave that, and not just literally trying to capture an experience of a specific trip or place but rather trying to bottle up the feeling that a new place and experience gives me emotionally.

What do you think are the biggest flaws about the L.A. art scene or its biggest strengths?
I think L.A. is amazing for art. There are so many talented people working in this city that I really respect. I would say the biggest flaw, if you want to call it that, is just the space of Los Angeles and trying to navigate through this madness just to catch a few shows! Everything is so spread out; I feel like I’ll have to bring my passport just to visit the galleries in Culver City! But then again, that can also be its strength: so many diverse areas of this city doing so many things, little scenes everywhere.

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