Canvas to Camera exhibition pairs French master artist Patrice Rouge’s abstract paintings and digital artist Robin Austin’s larger-than-life photo mosaics
May 12, 2021
Oversized pop mosaic photography blends with superb drip paintings in a one-of-a-kind curated show
Naples, FL: (March 30, 2021) . . . Marlissa Gardner, founder of global art consulting firm Emillions Art, LLC today announced Canvas to Camera, a new curated exhibition pairing French artist Patrice Rouge’s masterful abstract drip paintings and contemporary digital artist Robin Austin’s larger-than-life photo mosaic artworks for a limited time in May.
The one-of-a-kind joint exhibition will open with a rare personal appearance by Robin Austin at a reception Thursday, May 13th from 5 pm until 7 pm in the Emillions Art show room’s second floor location at 837 Fifth Avenue South in Naples. The exhibition will be open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am until 5 pm, May 14h through May 27th. Both the exhibition and reception will adhere to CDC guidelines with social distancing available throughout 2,000 square foot showroom and spacious outdoor balcony overlooking Fifth Avenue South. Reservations are available at: https://cameratocanvasvipreception.eventbrite.com.
“Collected worldwide, Patrice Rouge’s work combines touches of the 20th century — breakout colors, the use of drip technique — with the graphic design and mixed media of the 21st,” she continues, adding the brilliant abstract paintings vividly recall the creative influences of Pollock, Miro, Dali and Kandinsky. His travels and living in various places around the world have inspired his heavy use of color.
“While Patrice’s color palette draws on intense personal memories and embraces Pollock’s method of placing paint on a canvas, his paintings have their own distinctive character and use brighter colors. The similarities in style are seen as an homage as much as a rethinking,” she continues. “I am honored to host a limited showcase of his works in Naples,” she says, noting Rouge’s artwork was recently exhibited at the esteemed Salon International d’art contemporain in Paris.
About Patrice Rouge
Patrice Rouge has always had an artist’s eye, but his career in art is a story that is just now unfolding. Raised by French parents in Grenoble, France, Rouge’s creative instincts were nurtured while attending art school as a teenager. After completing his studies, he was anxious to travel and seek his fortune abroad. First he traveled to America, where he spent six months exploring the expanses of the southwest—Arizona, New Mexico, Utah—absorbing the colors of the landscape and in particular those of the Grand Canyon.
He committed those images to memory never expecting that they would one day find expression in his paintings. After leaving the U.S., he ventured to Brazil where he would embark on a career as a diamond trader. Rouge was drawn to the rich colors of Brazil, the dense jungle terrain, and the exotic grandeur of the Amazon. He was so enamored of the land that he would spend most of the next four decades living and working in Rio de Janeiro.
In 2015, Rouge decided it was time to leave the diamond trade and pursue his true calling—painting. Over dinner and wine at an idyllic Provençal restaurant, a friend suggested that he needed to change course in life. That was the moment Patrice realized that he needed to take up painting again as a way of reconnecting to his former passion.
This marked the creative rebirth of Patrice Rouge. Within a year, he had completed several dozen paintings, and he has since poured himself into his art with increasing urgency accessing his memories of the colors and vibrations. His paintings are a torrential downpour of colors, the blue of the Arizona sky, the intense greens and yellows of the Brazilian diamonds, the red of its tourmalines, the gold of imperial topaz.
There is no age limit to art believes Rouge. “The only importance is the work itself and I am anxious to see how the public responds to my paintings and how this journey will continue,” he says. “But the most important thing for me, personally, is that I was able to discover the artist inside me.”
Rouge’s work can be viewed online at https://emillionsart.com/artists/contemporary-artists/patrice-rouge/.
“Robin Austin is an American artist who lives in Florida. He is an iconic photo mosaic storyteller. He invented photo-mosaic photography art and is one of the most highly sought digital artists today,” says Ms. Gardner. “With thousands of images, he creates a visual celebration of the moments captured in time. No two images are alike, and you never look at the same image in the same way twice. Each viewing reveals a facet of the story anew,” she adds.
Gardner believes the genius of Austin’s artwork is in the exhaustive research that goes into each photo canvas – precisely and artistically composed. The result – a retelling, a chronicling of the spirit of pop culture. Each photo joins another photo and creates a new memory. “The story is the art,” she says.
About Robin Austin
Robin Austin’s photographic mosaics reflect his love and devotion to storytelling. As the head creative for his own branding firm, Austin told the stories of his clients. Now in his second career, Austin expands on the stories of some of the twentieth century’s biggest contributors to a shared cultural heritage: Frank Sinatra, Mick Jagger, the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Nelson Mandela, and many others have been immortalized anew.
More photos are taken today than ever before, yet most are looked at once and forgotten. By artfully weaving images together, Austin creates intriguing, emotional and playful works of art. Each time the image is viewed, something new is discovered. His art offers a deeper understanding and respect to our shared heritage and cultural legacy.
Austin’s process begins with painstaking research to collect thousands of photographs which will form the mosaic “tiles” of his pieces. The work is then “baked” onto an aluminum sheet through the process of dye sublimation. Each tile is a work in itself, but then each makes up a larger whole, creating large-scale portraiture that is almost a twist on “iconography.” Austin’s muses are the cultural icons of his youth in Leeds, England and remain influencing factors for the artist in his current work.
His work can be viewed online at: https://emillionsart.com/artists/contemporary-artists/robin-austin/.
The Emillions Art show room carries nationally recognized artists such as Joan Sonnenberg, Dario Campanile and Denise Cummings represented alongside international artists like Andreas Nottebohm, David & David, Don Gummer, Layla Love and many more.
Ms. Gardner travels the world to negotiate rare masterworks for the discerning collector. She continues to expand the Emillions Art network, creating international partnerships with esteemed gallerists, curators and collectors in the US, Europe and the Mideast. As an authority in fine art asset management, Emillions Art has developed a core collective of leading experts in art appraisals, art history, scientific forensics analysis, authentication, provenance, gallery exhibition, insurance, and other professionals to create a full slate of art industry services catering to ambitious buyers and collectors.
Collectors have an opportunity to start their collection with well-known and up-and-coming artists in a broad range of styles and mediums including but not limited to abstract, figurative portraiture, sculpture, photography, mixed media, drawings and paintings.
For more information, www.emillionsart.com; follow on Instagram @emillionsart or call (239) 687-3101.
