Walter Robinson

Painkiller

April 6th - May 11th 2014

Tops Gallery is pleased to present Painkiller,  an exhibition of eleven paintings by Walter Robinson. 

 Robinson, a New York based painter and art critic, emerged in the late 1970's among a group of young artists now known as the Pictures Generation.

 For Painkiller,  Robinson and Tops have thematically culled eleven paintings depicting relief in various guises. Taking his source material from advertising, Robinson renders mundane objects  like cigarettes, whiskey, aspirin, and cheeseburgers in what he refers to as a "straightforward illustrative style of painting." Appropriating images from magazines, brochures and the internet Robinson's work is the product of an observer both horrified and amused by the onslaught of advertising and consumption we all experience on a daily basis. Like a 21st century flaneur, Robinson's paintings can be seen as late capitalist still lives in the tradition of the memento mori.

 As Brice Marden noted in the early 1970's "painting says pain in it." Robinson's paintings suggest that the true painkiller is not the booze, fatty foods, or pills but the paintings themselves. 

Both remedy and vice.