David Kroll

Robischon Gallery presents its second solo exhibition of paintings by noted Pacific Northwest-based artist David Kroll. Kroll proffers each painting as a kind of meticulously constructed refuge of nature. Environmentally conscious, the artist states that through his work he strives to "add balance, order and beauty to a world that is weighted in the opposite."

Mindful of solace and sanctuary, Kroll approaches each blank canvas without a pre-defined image in order to have the painting reveal itself slowly and organically. The artist states that, "Painting in refined layers allows me to discover the narrative and emotional content of each composition over time. Using this method, I try to express why a sunset fills us with wonder, why a certain quality of light can make a busy day suddenly still and why the momentary sound of a bird can seem ・for that instant ・like the most important thing in the world."

The artist's favored compositional elements include exquisite, jewel- toned avian specimens and uniquely colorful moths elevated from their usual commonplace status. Birds with nesting material in their beaks, an inquisitive amphibian or swirling Koi are reverently positioned within the artist's sparsely staged still-life paintings. Kroll's symbolic creatures are often in relationship to delicate porcelain bowls, carefully woven nests or other natural objects like fragile eggs or an ephemeral spider web. All of which furthers the narrative in the artist's visual theater.

Painted with the finesse of an Old World master and the passion for wilderness of America's Hudson River School painters, each Kroll painting possesses small ironies that reveal the artist's decidedly contemporary view. Whether it is a painting of three small songbirds precisely balancing the metaphoric weight of the world on a free-rolling globe or a diminutive, watchful warbler overseeing nests built around a bowl labeled "tree," David Kroll's finely rendered and transcendent works gently call and finally engage the viewer into investigating the preciousness of our interconnected worlds.

David Kroll has a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a recipient of an NEA Regional Visual Artist Fellowship Award, Kroll's paintings have been widely exhibited across the U.S. in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the country including the Seattle Art Museum and Chicago's Art Institute. His work is the subject of much scholarship and can be found extensively in both corporate and private collections with paintings held by the prestigious MacArthur Foundation, among other such entities and institutions.