ROBIN CRUTCHER
"Painting is a joy for me...but it is also a challenge."
Robin Benton Crutcher, PhD is a practicing psychotherapist with 35 years of professional experience. The years of her adult life spent delving into ‘what’s below the surface’ consistently informs her work as an abstract painter. Her education in the visual arts includes an undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University and subsequent coursework at Virginia Commonwealth University, Tulane University, and the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. She has attended many residencies and workshops in Florida, Maine, New Mexico and Mexico. Robin currently resides in New Orleans where she is ‘artist in residence’ at Katie Koch Home, 3905 Magazine St. She is also represented by The Degas Gallery, 604 Julia St., New Orleans.
“I like to approach painting in much the same way that I approach working with a client in therapy, without judgement or agenda, letting the unconscious mind come to the fore. This way my artistic intuition and sensibility is allowed to flow freely into the work. Most of the time I paint completely non-objectively, enjoying the process of mark-making, color-blocking, texturizing and responding to those elements as I manipulate the surface of the canvas or paper.”
“When I paint, the challenge for me is finding a way to suspend my formal knowledge of painting, taking it from my head and trusting that it is ‘in my bones’. This allows me the freedom to respond to the work in the most spontaneous way as ‘the dance’ of painting ensues. The result should ultimately provide an aesthetically sound painting that is uniquely personal and interesting”.
