Robert Bickel

statement from May 2020

On a macro level, one might suppose that we are not unlike ocean waves, each unique but each a rather predictable version of what came before us. We exist moving through time and space, full of energy and fury… and then we don’t exist, leaving only traces. To comfort ourselves, we search for meaning and try to leave as many traces as possible, positive traces, legacies. Doing art allows one to creatively explore the visual world and at the end of the process there remains an actual physical trace and on rare occasions the product may even have some relevance.

This I suppose is the motivation; to find relevance in the visual composition as a way to struggle against ones mortality and anonymity. It is a learning process and like millions of other artists we hope one day to do a valid work of ‘ART’: to leave a trace.

On the personal level, my work has been influenced by lifelong synesthesia; often seeing geometric imagery before hearing sounds, a career in architectural design, the ‘Deconstructivist’ architectural movement in Los Angeles, a growing admiration with the world of physics and consequently a realization that the world as we see it is largely a convenient abstraction.