My artwork has always contained thematic elements of detachment coupled with a sense of familiarity and innate understanding. In the past two years I have focused almost exclusively on images informed by antique photographs found in thrift stores. I choose the photos based on the visual relationship among the subjects and between the subjects and the camera (viewer). I hope to update and attend to these lost images in a manner that conveys both intimacy and distance, and it is this melancholy relationship that invites the audience to engage, consider and connect. I respect the images and attempt to present them in such a way that they are familiar and touching, as well as faint and removed. The pen and ink works are stark and isolate the subjects so that the relationships are intensified and scrutinized. My intent is that the visible strokes of the pen or pencil convey a care and deliberation that includes the artist (myself) in the relationship and enhances the layers of the theme. The figure work is another means to approach the idea of presenting a subject in a manner that is simultaneously intimate and distant.

I was born in New Orleans, LA, and raised in San Antonio, TX. I attended the University of Texas in Austin and spent six weeks in Italy with the art department studying art and art history. I obtained a BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Painting, and soon after moved to Boston, MA. Following three years in Boston, I spent three months in France working at an international volunteer camp. Upon returning to the US, I promptly moved to Chicago and have spent the past three years living here.

These travels and explorations have contributed to the growth and development of my work by exposing me to a wide variety of history and the ways that people relate to their past. Past work in oil was concerned with empty interior spaces and architectural constructs, and these compositional elements and emotional tone has continued to the present. I have always had a strong foundation of technical drawing ability, and I hone this skill through constant sketching and drawing (figures, cityscapes, still lifes). Lately I have left painting to develop the expressive ability of drawing with pen or pencil. For the past two years I have focused on a reclamation project of sorts. I have rescued old photos from antique shops in order to attend to them and bring them into the present with a personal interpretation on mood, relevance and lost intimacy.

All artwork copyright © Rob Caswell. Do not reuse without permission.
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