Dorothy Robinson

Education

1993
M.F.A., Painting, UC Berkeley

1979
Geography, UC Berkeley

Awards and Honors

2017
Artist-in-Residence, MASSMoCA, North Adams, MA

2015
Grant Recipient, Lillian Orlowsky and Louis Freed Foundation, Provincetown, MA

2012
Artist-in-Residence, chaNorth, Pine Plains, NY

2010
Grant Recipient, Artists’ Fellowship Inc., NYC
Grant Recipient, Change, Inc., Captiva, FL
Grant Recipient, Left Tilt Fund, San Francisco, CA

2009
Artist-in-Residence, VCCA, Amherst, VA
Artist-in-Residence, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NYC

2008
Grant Recipient, Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Artist-in-Residence, Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Ithaca, NY

2007
Artist-in-Residence, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NYC
Artist-in-Residence, Catskill Center for the Arts, Arkville, NY

2005
Alexander Rutsch Award for Painting, Pelham, NY

2004
Artist-in-Residence, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program, NY
Artist-in-Residence, Caldera, Deschutes National Forest, OR

2000
Artist-in-Residence, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Temecula, CA

1996
Award of Merit, Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, CA

1993
Eisner Prize in the Creative Arts, UC Berkeley
J. Ruth Kelsey Travel Award, UC Berkeley

Solo Exhibitions

2018
Garrison Art Center, Off the Grid, Garrison NY

2015
527 Madison Avenue Lobby Gallery, Landscapes, New York City

2013
Artifact Gallery, Transitional Flow, New York City

2012
Schaefer Landing, Landscape Paintings, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

2009
Slate Gallery, Continental Drift, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

2008
Slate Gallery, Tectonics, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

2005
Pelham Art Center, Alexander Rutsch Award Exhibition, Pelham, NY

2003
Soularch Gallery, A Little Northwest of Eden, San Francisco, CA

1995
Worth Ryder Gallery, J. Ruth Kelsey Award Exhibit, Berkeley, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019
Pelham Art Center, HyperAccumulators, Pelham, NY
Weatherspoon Art Museum, 2019 Art on Paper, Greensboro, NC
r.blitzer gallery, Group Exhibition, Santa Cruz, CA

2018
Chroma Projects, Drawing Together: Five Bay Area artists reunite, Charlottesville, VA

2016
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA

2014
Pelham Art Center, Pelham, New York
The Painting Center, Shifting Ecologies, NYC

2012
Artifact Gallery, Aftermath, New York City
The Painting Center, Natural Constructed Spaces, NYC

2010

Storefront Gallery, Utopia/Dystopia, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Leanne Hull Fine Art, Group Show, La Jolla, CA

2008

Slate Gallery, Black and White, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The Erpf Gallery, Arkville, NY

2007

The ’temporary Museum, The Impermanent Collection IV, Brooklyn, NY
The Gallery at R&F, Not Seeing the Forest, Kingston, NY

2005
Edward Thorp Gallery, Presentations, NYC

2004
SFMOMA Artists’ Gallery, Out There, San Francisco CA

1997
Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, Exemplary Contemporary, Santa Cruz, CA

At its most basic level, my work is inspired by nature, the beauty of color, and the expressive possibilities of oil paint. Passages of thick impasto, scrapings of mixed up colors, and thinned-out washes suggest the quality and feeling of landscape, if not its details. Adding and subtracting layers of paint tap into the constant motion of an interior life, and evoke themes of growth, change, and instability. My approach is intuitive—I don’t plan my paintings or work on them from sketches. Compositions emerge from accumulating fragments and passages that grow, collide, shrink, and finally settle into what feels like ‘place’. They are intended to hover between abstraction and figuration, leaving room for subjectivity and multiple meanings to emerge. Rather than a single view, the landscape suggests movement and the passage of time. Varying scale and arrangement of forms within a piece evokes the experience of observing the world while walking through it.

Erika Howsare, “Land Here Now”, C-ville Weekly, July 10 – 16, 2019.

Blazej, Sara, “Aftermath at Artifact,”arterynyc.com/posts/aftermath-at-artifact/ 01-29-2013

Braun, Lauren, “Spotlight on Dorothy Robinson,” http://thelaurenbraun.blogspot.com 2-15-2010

Zucker, Adam, “Continental Drift On View in Brooklyn,” berkshirefinearts.com 6-29-2009