Robert Ginder: Not Knowing

July 23 - September 3, 2022

For his first exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, Robert Ginder describes his work as a “recontextualization of a common experience by employing art history to create a venerable artifact.” Forging his own brand of Photorealism, Ginder interprets the houses and palms of his childhood neighborhood of South LA, in the context of an Early Renaissance style, creating “contemporary secular icons.”

On a wood panel with a gold-leafed sky, a humble California bungalow might be sanctified as a holy site, or it may be that this simple home was always sacred and its perception as such has only been aided by the artist’s framing. The circular shape of the Santa Monica Pier’s ferris wheel becomes a perfect device for an engraved halo, highlighting its purity of form and its stature as a Southern California cultural icon. These are not religious paintings, but they are reminders that awareness, or perhaps enlightenment, is influenced by one’s level of perception and the ability to see beyond the objective reality.