Art Commentary with Marion Wolberg Weiss

Mixing it Up with Ken Robbins at Pamela Williams Gallery

While "mixing it up" is not the title of Ken Robbins' current show at the Pamela Williams Gallery in Amagansett, the term seems fitting. Contrary to first impressions, however, the expression does not connote a subculture's sensibility or anything "cool."

Work by Ken Robbins

Instead, "mixing it up" refers to this critic's perception that Mr. Robbins' photographs are a combination or mixture of diverse styles and evocations. In fact, his digital technique is based on the very art of combining varied images. The result is dynamic, combustible, mysterious and evasive pictures.

Simply put, Mr. Robbins' photographs are connected to reality, but they're more than reality. Is this magic realism? Perhaps. Is it a bit of surrealism? Perhaps. Do his images tell a story? Often. Do these stories recall films, as photographs sometimes do? You bet.

For example, one image, "Interstate," brings back memories of Dual, a 1971 made-for-TV movie directed by Steven Spielberg. A lone truck traveling the southwest highways is "stalked" by another vehicle which the driver cannot discern. Mr. Robbins' truck is similarly lost and perhaps menaced in the alienated landscape.

This isolation also creates a kind of surrealism for other images - the blood oranges that pervade the space, creating both overt sensuousness and covert evasiveness questioning the nature of reality. Consider Lazy Point's lonely stretch of road suggesting revelation at the end of the path. Consider, too, "Inquisition," a more obvious surrealistic depiction where violence and death are revealed in a single image of an open pomegranate.

An isolated moon becomes a motif in many of Mr. Robbins' works, like "Lunatic Tree" and "Red Rose." The circle configuration becomes a philosophical statement as well, where life and death are connected. Such a shape also recalls a primitive state where the moon was the spirit guiding the powers of nature and man.

Isolation comes in various forms. Mr. Robbins' "Springs General Store" presents an idiosyncratic image for those of us who know the place. So does "Eddie's Luncheonette." Such an effect does not necessarily produce surrealism, however. What it does create is a sense of Americana as well as a specific time and place.

Ken Robbins' photographs will be on view at Pamela Williams Gallery until May 18. Call 631-267-7817.

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