Bio

Rob Fox (b. Mallorca, Spain) is a British abstract painter living in Switzerland.

After a career in policy and communications he set up his independent art practice in 2019.

He was mentored by the Paris-based art curator and advisor Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts and has since built a sustained program of studio practice.

Contact: respenfox@gmail.com

Statement

I paint to reinstate beauty. Beauty has been robbed of its power. It has been reduced to the visual and to aesthetics. There were periods when we experienced beauty as a tool for order and transcendence. Our experience of beauty was physical, spiritual, philosophical, and moral.

I want to integrate that experience again. For me, that begins with paintings that at first seem unknowable. They appear broken and whole at the same time, formless and formal. They draw me in to watch their own construction as if in real time. And they command a physical, spiritual, and philosophical response.

When beauty is integrated into our society, it is moral. Beauty then enters the political realm, not politics, because it speaks to all.

Little in my paintings is pre-planned. Beyond oil paint, resin and acrylic, tools and materials are purposely basic and limited. Layering textures, I want to create movement, both depth and surface as well as lateral momentum across the canvas. I work to overturn assumptions about surface coherence and aesthetics. The goal is always surprise. And when the painting emerges, it offers its broken marks to the viewer as tools to build a fuller experience of beauty.