Animals are Good for Thinking:
Paintings by Robert Bissell

December 31, 1998 - April 17, 1999

"Animals are Good for Thinking"
-- Claude Levi-Strauss

Borrowing a quote from the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss to entitle this exhibit, Robert Bissell (b. 1952), like his painting style, tells us with direct clarity about the meaning of his art. He uses animals as protagonists of his narratives. However, the appearance of animals does not make them mere children's tales. Quite to the contrary, as William Zimmer, art critic for The New York Times warns, Bissell's work disarms by narrating vitally grown-up and urgent allegories in the guise of child-like humor.

Bissell's paintings are in fact animal allegories that reflect the human disposition. Lured into a realm devoid of humans, the animal characters allow us to more objectively consider our own condition and place in nature. His paintings bring us to reflect upon the environment, life, death, renewal, and stages of transition, as departing from the safety of family to make our way in the world.

As a hallmark of excellent painters, Bissell creates a completely different atmosphere from our daily existence and invites us into his visual imagination to learn more about ourselves. His work is full of charged meaning, lore and touched by surrealism. Influenced by the surreal legacy of Magritte, he likewise mixes scales and uses gigantism with a variety of textures and subtle color palettes. Literature is the stimulus for some of his paintings, such as the poetry of Coleridge. While beautiful and vast, his landscapes often reveal the alarming power of nature.

Bissell grew up in Somerset, England, and thus, retains in his love of art a love of rural life, Celtic legends and panoramic landscapes. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a Masters in Fine Art Photography with which he launched his earlier career in commercial photography. He lives in California with his wife, numerous pets and a Deep, Dark Forest behind his home.