SAXTONS RIVER — Main Street Arts will host an exhibit of the work of artist Robert McBride from July 28 to Aug. 26, with an opening reception Thursday, Aug. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
McBride's show, titled “Colorfully Informed,” features his trademark vibrant colors informed by the world he experiences, according to a news release.
In the release, he says the focus of his work is color - as painting and as sculpture.
“Creating the work allows me to translate much of the stimulation (visual, audio, emotional) that I take in from living into tangible forms,” he says. “Often people respond to my work as landscape with a topographical perspective, as if they were looking down from above.”
He says the texture of the colors and the groupings of marks add a strong narrative sense to the work that he likens to a conversation.
“I approach the blank surface with a vocabulary (line, form, color). I have no set idea (sketch) of what I want the completed work to look like. As I commit myself to the work (by applying color) a rapport develops between the painting/sculpture and myself,” he says.
McBride says in the news release that he has always worked abstractly and believes that “art is anything that slows one down enough to notice.”
A native of California, the Bellows Falls resident received a B.A. in painting from the University of California at Berkeley. He moved to New York City, where he earned an M.F.A. at Hunter College and was a founding member of Painting Space 122, an alternate art space on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
McBride moved to Bellows Falls full time in 1995 and founded the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project, whose focus is to integrate artists and the arts into the economic and cultural development of the community.