Meet Connor, Sari and Herbert…

Encountered in a small annex of the Robert Miller Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City, they took me by surprise.   Small in stature  compared to the grownups mounted on aluminum by the same artist in the large adjoining galleries, the modestly framed portraits captivated me with a familiar charm.  Painted on paper by the artist Robert Greene, the fifteen or so exhibited works are colorful, abstract portraits of the painter’s friends, family and canine companions.  The texture of the oil paint is gestural, impastoed in a way that suggests the artist is calling out the names of his childhood friends or immediate neighbors.  Hailing “Uncle Herbert”, “Connor”, his stepson, and “Sari”, his brother’s wife.

Robert Greene has always admired industrial design, color and the monumental scale of the natural landscape.  This most recent work harkens back to his narrative landscapes of the 1980’s where he captured familiar figures in romantic settings.  Representational, with Corot-like skies and decorative elements that recall Marsden Hartley and Alice Neel, those early paintings revealed places of emotional escape.
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In a similar way, the new works, both large and small, do the same, but in a more visceral way, zooming in on the color and texture he loves to reveal a more honest and mature emotional landscape.  But it is in the intimate scale of his works on paper that Greene’s methodical constructions of narrow vellum strips strike a chord.  The elegant patterns and sweep of the larger work that has graced fine homes and Chanel boutiques give way to a painterly reminiscence that is entirely without guile.