Best Proof That Artists Can Change Course
After the Pale King: Andrew Roberts-Gray
A couple of years ago, Glenwood Springs-based artist Andrew Roberts-Gray was interested in capturing the mountain scenery in paintings that were fairly traditional save for a few colorful and expressive abstract passages inserted here and there. Those paintings represented a contemporary spin on that old workhorse the Western landscape. The artist’s oeuvre has changed considerably since then, and although he still claims to refer to the landscape, such reference was hard to see in his most recent work, which made up the solo After the Pale King: Andrew Roberts-Gray at Michael Warren Contemporary. The show was dominated by gigantic, post-minimal wall constructions made up of multiple panels that sometimes had geometric sculptural elements. Artists are often timid about changing course once they’ve developed a successful artistic formula, as Roberts-Gray had with his earlier, slightly altered landscapes, and it probably took courage to throw away that signature style. Fortunately, he found another one that is just as successful, if not more so.