Robert Kinsell

With his sly sense of humor and killer wit, Robert Kinsell offers up new paintings that ask the viewer to look at the traditional genre of still life in a new way. The strange combinations and placement of objects in his paintings create contradictions of form and function, and yet the outcome is not only amusing, but also exhibits his remarkable painting skills. As he explains, "My choices in the arrangement of the objects in the still lifes as well as how they are described are at the core of my investigations... I am continually haunted and amused by the whole proposal of making a realistic image. I know that what I paint is no more real than a magician's trick, but that illusion of reality continually drives me on. Nothing could be less natural than the staging of objects in the still lifes or the snapshots used as studies for the landscapes. To make the paintings seem natural and still point a finger at the absurdity of the proposal of the paintings is why I do what I do. I need to perform the trick at the same time as revealing that it is a trick to the viewer." Robert Kinsell completed his Master of Fine Art in Painting at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. He is a Professor of Art at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he has taught Painting, Drawing, Figure Drawing, Design, and Advertising Design. Kinsell's solo exhibitions include "Past and Present" at the Longview Museum of Fine Art in Longview, Texas; "Reality-Virtual and Otherwise" at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas; and "The Secret Life of Objects: Ten Years in Texas," at the Museum of East Texas in Lufkin. He has also exhibited at the Galveston Art Center in Galveston, Texas; the Glassell School of Art in Houston, Texas; Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin, Texas. His work can be found in a number of public and private collections, including the South Texas Institute for the Arts in Corpus Christi, Texas.