Dust Do Shine brings together a new body of paintings and works on paper by Robert Szot, developed through a process of accumulation, revision, concealment, and return. Across the exhibition, large fields of color and metal leaf are interrupted by fragments of drawing, buried chromatic passages, and weathered surfaces that suggest both construction and erosion. The paintings do not present abstraction as a fixed image or predetermined idea, but as a record of decisions made in real time — forms discovered, questioned, obscured, and reasserted until they arrive at a state of earned authority.
This West Coast preview offers an early look at a body of work that marks a significant shift in Szot’s 25-year practice. Long invested in complexity, responsiveness, and what he describes as “authorship with variety,” Szot now allows larger forms, greater restraint, and more decisive spatial structures to carry the weight of the paintings. The result is a group of works that hold together force and quiet, radiance and abrasion, clarity and mystery. In Dust Do Shine, surfaces are not polished into resolution; they become luminous through pressure, time, and repeated acts of looking.
Dust Do Shine will be on view at Anita Rogers Gallery in New York City September 23-October 31, 2026.
Please make an appointment for the weekend of August 14th to preview this work in-person in Los Angeles.