Eva Robarts: Bikes, Bolts & Broomes

Nicola Vassell is pleased to present Bikes, Bolts & Broomes, an exhibition of sculptures by Eva Robarts that will be the artist’s first solo presentation with the gallery. Robarts creates work from the cast offs of society, constructing pieces that reform and transform found objects taken from her surrounding urban landscape to give them a second life. Her practice, which oscillates between creation and destruction, establishes a conversation with the public and private infrastructure of the city that emerges from material remains that she collects from the streets of New York.

Robarts’ process begins outside the confines of her studio as she rejects a traditional studio practice that sequesters the artist from their surrounding environs. Instead, she fully immerses herself within the city through long walks across its expanse—searching, finding and gathering urban detritus that becomes the foundation for her sculptures. Through these excursions, Robarts engages in a dialogue with the cityscape, treating it as an active collaborator, and tapping into the consciousness of the civic environment through each piece that she brings back to her studio. These objects—mop poles, bike frames, door knobs—infuse each of Robarts’ composite sculptures with a sense of vigorous materiality, echoed by the chipped paint, rust, dirt, and debris that coat them. The result is a collection of sculptures that pulse with the kinetic energy of the city from which they were sourced. This is a durational process that can take months, even years, as the objects she sources remain in what Robarts calls a period of gestation until, in a moment of improvisation and chance, the artist finds new forms for them. Robarts’ method, therefore, develops from a subconscious and spiritual practice that is driven by the vitality and lived history of the found objects she intervenes upon.

While the objects the artist works with comprise a living archive of municipal experience, Robarts’ sculptures nevertheless exhibit the authority and tactility of her ownmark-making. The artist formally renders gesture through the drill, which she wields as her paintbrush. The drill creates an imprint of the artist’s hand by resisting the rigidity of metal and steel through punctures and perforations that transform industrially-produced found objects into malleable forms, sutured together into composite structures by nuts and bolts. In this way, Robarts transforms broom and mop poles into delicate, monochromatic weavings and reconstructs bike parts into propulsive and vividly colorful V-sculptures. The dynamic linearity of her sculptures establishes a poetic dialogue between the kineticism of the artist’s formal gesture, New York’s gridded topography, and the vibrant remains of the city’s abandoned objects.

Wednesday, February 5th

3 sticks I’ve been eyeing behind the roll-down gate next door to my apartment at Lucille Rose Manor were finally brought out for trash pick-up. They were bundled together with several wooden mops bound with yellow duct tape. The facility is a senior center “apartment community” on 364 Vernon Ave. They only seem to schedule curbside pickup once a month. Overall, I’m very happy about these finds: 2 mirror polished chrome sticks, one w stunning yellow mop head attachment and the 3rd stick is an uncommon grey mop. I’ll need to remove the head on the grey mop. Decapitation. Never thought of it like that before ~ Destruction = Creation ~ such a violent process this is.

—Eva Robarts journal entry

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