By Anne W. Semmes
Ron Strackbein is aglow surrounded by his “New Constructions” at The Barn at Downing-Yudain Gallery in Stamford. He has come to this artistic achievement after a long successful career in the corporate world of investments and management. His art he describes as assemblage art. “I have a color scheme that applies to each one of these three-dimensional elements. And I paint those individually. And then attach these three-dimensional elements to the cradle board or the canvas as the case may be.”
His objective with his “composite paintings” is to “create a cohesive work whose beauty resonates with the viewer.”
With those three-dimensional elements he has a markedly evergreen approach, as they are discarded construction materials he finds, “on the sites of renovations and new construction in my mid-country neighborhood or found in construction debris at the Greenwich Recycling Center.”
His composite paintings abound in color. His color appreciation he traces to his working years in California. “First, in graduate school at Stanford…I became exposed to the light and colors, which I think are quite different on the West Coast.” There was also time spent working in Los Angelos, and then in San Luis Obispo, “which is right in the center of the state. and I just became very acclimated to the light and colors there…In California the light is much brighter and clearer. It was the memories of that that have influenced my color choices here.”
Add Matisse as an influencer for his colors. “He felt color was power, and I feel the same way.” But all this composite painting only began some four years ago!
“I initially thought I’d try my hand at collage,” he tells. “I really admired the work of the Cubists…And then I became very interested in the works of Robert Motherwell who had a studio on North Street.”
So, he began painting with collage and signed onto classes at Silvermine Art Center, and then the Art Students League. But Covid interfered, with the Art Students League shutting down.
“And so almost all of my art education was online. And so, my instructor, Bruce Dorfman who’s older than I am, took it upon himself to provide commentary online. I would make a draft, and take a photo, email it to him, and then if he had any comments or thoughts, he would email it back to me.”
In all this Strackbein found collage wasn’t “sufficiently satisfying.” “So, I began to explore assemblage whose origins can be traced to collage.” Assemblage artists he admires include Jasper Johns and Louise Nevelson.
So, now as an assemblage artist, how long does it take to create one of his works? “I would say each work represents maybe a couple of weeks’ worth of work…There’s a lot of process that has to take place into making a piece of art. It’s very challenging.”
Strackbein traces his artistic interest to when he was in fifth grade. “My initial entry point was winning the Gold Star for the best March of Dimes poster in Crotonville, Iowa in 1952…That poster was to raise money at the time of polio. And my family raised cattle down there… and people were always raising money for research and also the care of children that were affected by polio.”
“But then there was a 70-year hiatus. I picked up art making again, just shortly before we were struck by the Coronavirus 19.”
Splayed out on a coffee table in the center of his composite painting exhibit in The Barn he’s laid out his “materials of life.” “This is a piece of a crown molding. This is a piece of window molding…. And so, it’s a multi-step process because of all the layering.” Then standing by a painting he describes, “So, what you’re seeing here is what they call cradle boards and they’re about an inch and a half thick, and it creates a very hard tensile surface on which to mount the three-dimensional elements.”
He then shares a testament toward his use of those “construction materials” as elements of his composite paintings. It includes: “The American sculptor, John Chamberlain whose works employed twisted automobile bumpers and fenders, declared that the use of everyday materials ‘is assembling our materials into a portrait of who we are.’”
Ron Strackbein’s “New Constructions” will be on exhibit at The Barn at Downing-Yudain Gallery in Stamford through November 23.
