The Art of Chad Robertson

By: Chase Whitman | December 18, 2009 | Art

I just read an article where Stephen King said, on average, Americans stare at screens or monitors of many different type for 8.5 hours a day. How much time do you spend looking into computer screen?
If you count my iPhone, almost every hour that I am awake!

Luc Tuyman’s said, something to the effect that “a film can use a million images to create one sentiment while a painting generates a multitude of thought with one image.” I feel like your work, both old and new, manifests a new species of poly-image and fills the massive gap between Tuyman’s two extremes. Is multiplicity an important issue for you to explore with your work?
Yes, I agree with this completely. Multiplicity is incredibly important to the painting that I do.  Going back to the previous question, everything is in flux. Representing that in my work is everything.

I find that Sergei Eisenstein’s theories on intellectual montage shine an interesting light on your new body of work. The genesis of these new, complex sentiments is your combinations of imagery. These novel, cognitive emotions are interesting because they are not within the original images.  It is a beautiful reflection of the way things occurs in nature — male and female producing offspring — and in our society. The creation stems from the combination. What are you exploring with these combinations?
I am very interested in the juxtapositions of different images and the new stories they can tell together. I love taking things out of context and representing them in a whole new light. I love that it makes what I am working on constantly changing and morphing into something new. I really dislike linear art, art that boxes itself in. I hope and strive to always keep the narrative open-ended and therefore timeless. Great music does that for me. I want my work to reflect an eagerness to work with the viewer to come up with [his or her] own answers. What the viewer comes up with will always be so much more interesting than what I’m trying to say or, God forbid, preach to them.

How do you think your work will age? What will be the view of these pieces as we progress?
Hopefully well! I try not to think of my work in those terms; I try to paint in the present and hopefully my work will reflect this time properly. But still have some universal aspect, feelings, emotions that will always be present no matter what time period it is.

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