03 Mar 2020

Robin Dash: Paintings on Paintings

Carroll and Sons

Reviewed by Liza Bingham

In the jewel box space of Carroll and Sons is Robin Dash's show "Paintings on Paintings," a suite of works that can also read as a single installation. There's something hypnotic to what the artist refers to as the "on-goingness" of the project suggested by the title.

It takes deftness to keep discrete layers of paint, some years old, in play simultaneously. Dash counters that nimbleness with an equal embrace of a certain ham-handed wonkiness. This visual dissonance seems part of Dash's modus operandi as she works over time. The seductive blush of a glazed passage is overlapped by looming shapes of thick opacity. Pollock-like drips made with student-grade acrylics peek out from behind a vaguely leaf-like silhouette, lusciously painted with pedigreed oils acquired from the studio of Pat Passlof and Milton Resnick. These paintings acknowledge art history but also demonstrate a restlessness to keep in the moment.