Paintings
40 years to Pure Color, a 155 paintings, 150 seconds retrospective.
The trails of brushstrokes as they weave colors into each other is the subject of the work.
"..The colors act as notes and the whole of them convey a musical piece, a symphony, but one where every note is played at once.
There is really no beginning, no end - it is a loop of color relation, interplay, seduction and harmony." (from Moni Schifler-Azank's essay).
Wavefield #215, after a Palette by Egon Schiele. 8/2025, 12" x 12", 30cm x 30cm, oil on board.
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"Palette Homages", by Lee Klein - Village Star-Revue, August 2025.
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Roberto Azank always surprises. Having been called the "chromatic Mozart," as he can and has harmonized the seemingly most incongruent hues at the pictorial horizon line, he now turns to abstraction to paint waves of chroma, firstly sampling his own still life and pastoral scenes of lotus flowers upon lily pads and other placid bodies of water, and secondly a whole range of the palettes of colorist superstars.
The offerings are sumptuous in the second round of this current trajec-tory, like a dinner menu at a five-star restaurant with a bounty of delights:
Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, Holbein the Younger, Henri Matisse, and finally, exuberantly landing upon Zurbarán, which, for this writer, is like a dessert of crème brûlée.
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Catalog of works
Interview 2024 - Video
A candid interview where Roberto explains the how's and why's of the new abstract work that emerged in 2023-24.
Selected Paintings
Studio Visit Video
"A completely new body of work has emerged since we moved back to Woodstock, NY last summer. This place has such amazing energy! It was also the birthplace of the Still Lives style, almost 30 years ago when we first lived here! Lovely to be back!"
from Moni Schifler Azank's essay -