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Robert Hightower, A Seat at the Table

Bay Area · Contemporary Artist

Color is
what healing
looks like.

A Seat at the TableBader + Simon GalleryCincinnati, OhioUpcoming Solo ExhibitionRobert Hightower A Seat at the TableBader + Simon GalleryCincinnati, OhioUpcoming Solo ExhibitionRobert Hightower
Artist Statement
For four years, everything I made was black and white. That wasn't a style. It was the only honest thing I could make. Color is what arrived when the weight lifted. This work is the proof.
Upcoming Exhibition
A Seat at the Table
Bader + Simon Gallery  ·  Cincinnati, Ohio
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New Work

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Aftermath
No. 17
Aftermath
Discussions
No. 18
Discussions
Pink Problems
No. 20
Pink Problems
Kids Chair
No. 01
Kids Chair
Blue Chair
No. 14
Blue Chair
The Hot Seat
No. 13
The Hot Seat

Read the Painting

Aftermath, detail
1
2
3
4
Element 01
The Chairs
Three chairs, set out in the marsh, like someone was expecting company that never came. A seat at the table isn't a guarantee - it's an invitation, and sometimes it just sits there, weathering, waiting to be taken.
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Element 02
The Marsh
The dark band beneath the chairs is neither solid ground nor clearly water, a threshold state that runs through the whole exhibition: waiting rather than arriving.
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Element 03
The Far Chairs
Two more chairs, smaller and further back, echoing the three in front - one still standing, one already tipped on its side. The same waiting, just harder to make out from this distance.
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Element 04
The Field
A wide plane of red pressing down on the scene below, giving the chairs nowhere to hide and nothing to lean on but each other.
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Robert Hightower
The Artist

Robert
Hightower

Bay Area contemporary artist. Self-taught. Started painting in 2021 and hasn't stopped. Four years of therapy, 18 exhibitions, a complete reinvention of his practice, and the discovery that color was waiting on the other side of the hardest work he'd ever done.

Moving forward under his full name is itself a statement: no handles, no aliases. Just the work and the person who made it.

18+
Exhibitions
7
Solo Shows
2021
First Canvas
2027
A Seat at the Table
Full Biography →
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