Robert Schwarzenbach’s works are really sculptures of paintings. The medium is canvas and oil, yes, but the way the work is executed makes it three dimensional. Take for example, the Lion Gate Series #1 (1993). At 26 by 34 inches, it contains seven varied nonrepresentational geometric shapes: three rectangles, a triangle and three trapezoids. Lines are made, not painted. By this I mean each representation of color, each shape is produced in its own individually stretched piece of canvas.

The canvases are then bolted together to make a rectangular unit. Schwarzenbach then applies layers of paint to each canvas, about fifteen to twenty layers, each a different hue, in each shape. Paint from below the surface application shows through in a patina of apparently random color. The paint on the canvas looks weathered, aged. There is a roughness, a texture that invites. It is this texture, along with the method of assembling the work, that makes it more sculpted than drawn.

Like the process of building a structure, Schwarzenbach draws “blueprints” of a concept and sets out to construct a piece of art from this plan. Because his work is so labor intensive, framing each component, stretching each piece of cut canvas, bolting the pieces together, ensuring each piece fits into place and holds its own weight in the structure of the whole—any changes in this process would be costly, both in time and materials. Like an architect, he understands the concept has to be flawless.

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