ROBIN AULT
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Colorado in 1973, Robin Ault studied architecture at the University of Colorado and graduated in 1996. He spent a semester studying and traveling in Europe in 1994 in the University’s Rome, Italy program with the University of Washington.
In late 1995, he began working as a designer in the Denver architecture firm of Fentress Architects and since then has participated in numerous international design competitions and been the project designer for several buildings. Recently promoted to Senior Associate, he is currently designing a new humanities building for the University of California, Irvine campus and a new stem cell research laboratory for the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine adjacent to the Salk Institute in La Jolla.
Trained as an architect, Ault has always considered himself an artist and has used painting and sketching as part of the design process. Inspired by the writings and work of Robert Motherwell, Antoni Tapies, Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg, Ault began focusing more and more time to painting in the summer of 1999. Since then, he has won several awards and received a public art commission from the City of Denver. Robin Ault is a visiting critic to the University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning Denver and Boulder campuses and has spoken about art and architecture at the Architecture Laboratory in Denver.
Create the incredible. Art was always it. Architecture came later.
In my life, art and architecture serve as counterpoints to each other, the one priming the other. The practice of architecture is structured by program and client preferences – a dozen people can tell you what to do and every line has 15 critics. By contrast, painting is pure liberation. Immediacy is everything.
I work mostly in gouache and acrylic. I may start with charcoal or graphite or crayon, but afterward I soak the surface so that I can't predict what the paint's going to do – in order to invite the unexpected to occur.
I work quickly. Painting quickly is a calculated act to block out pure rational thought and stimulate the imagination. The object is knowing when the painting is done: when I've gone far enough. Sometimes I catch myself at just the right moment, or I walk away for a minute and realize it’s complete. Sometimes, after going too far, I wipe the canvas clean and with a few strokes, suddenly there it is: a familiar but unanticipated presence that didn’t desert me after all.