Robert therrien studio
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"Sometimes people ask whether I am a romantic or a realist artist. I would hope that I fall between the two. . . The ideal artist looks at the future and the past at the same time. The romantic artist spends more time looking backwards. The realist attempts to work in the present but emphasizes the future. However, if you try to predict the future, you seldom succeed. "
-Robert Therrien
Born in Chicago, Therrien emerged on the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene in the late 1970s after completing graduate school at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and studying photography at the Brooks Institute, Santa Barbara, California. At a time when the dominance of Minimalism and Conceptualism was being challenged, Therrien adopted certain formal aspects of these movements, yet allowed his pared-down sculptures and monochrome wall reliefs to take on poetic reference and implied narratives.
Robert Therrien’s manipulations of everyday objects alter the viewer’s psychic as well as physical space. Removed of their functionality and altered in unfa
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I try to stay with themes or objects or sources I can trace back to my personal history. The further back I can trace something as being meaningful to me in some way or another… the more I am attracted to it.
-Robert Therrien
The lushly colored storybook image in Robert Therrien's No Title (1996) speaks of childhood curiosity and a parent's instinct to preserve the fleeting days of innocence through the fantastical story of where babies come from. The exaggerated length of the stork's beak tenderly delivering the parcel punctuates the absurdity of this fable. Like much of Therrien's work, No Title tells the story of the surreal realms that exist between dreams, mythology and childhood memories.
Robert Therrien was known for his whimsical, large-scale sculptures of everyday objects such as dishes, tables and chairs. These installations often inspire a childlike awe that summon the sensation of being little again, a time when anything is possible. His work wryly recalls the wonders and trepidation of youth.
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Robert Therrien
American sculptor (1947–2019)
Robert Therrien (November 17, 1947 – June 17, 2019) was an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures.[1][2] His work reimagined and reinvented objects from everyday life, such as a set of table and chairs or stacks of plates, turning them into monumental immersive sculptures.[3] Los Angeles–based, Therrien was described as being possessed by a sense of wonder over commonplace experiences[4]
Early life
Therrien was born in 1947 in Chicago, Illinois.[5][6][7] He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family when he was around five years old. After high school, he began his formal art education in Oakland at the California College of the Arts but then moved to Southern California. In 1970, he enrolled at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara where he received a degree in photography while also studying painting at the affiliated Santa Barbara Art Institute.[8][6] He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the Univers
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