Robin Adler
Robin Adler is a contemporary artist, born in Norfolk, Virginia, and living in New York’s Hudson Valley. Adler transcribes emotional experiences into visual form while expressing boundless enthusiasm for abstraction. Using line, shape, markings, color, and movement, she works intuitively, pushing past limitations toward freedom and possibility. Adler explores her inner landscape and the natural environment to foster dialogue and human connection.
Adler uses various media including oil, acrylic, wax, and print. Her work has been in group exhibitions in galleries throughout the East Coast. Adler is a member of two art collectives, Spliced Connector and The Drawing Galaxy. Her work can be seen online at artsy.net. Adler’s work is held in private collections across the United States.
"I create art to connect to my own spirit and to transcribe experience in a way that can not only be understood but felt by others. My work articulates movement, kinetic growth, and conversations between shapes—a thriving metamorphosis that continually changes with layer upon layer of paint or ink.
I work intuitively. My brush strokes are rapid and gestural. I scratch into paint, employ squiggles, and use energetic lines to encourage tempo and rhythm. Vibrant color excites me; I combine hues that sing together or provide an interesting contrast. The canvas is a living, breathing form for me—emerging, changing, always growing.
My intention is to create a space for interaction and reaction between the viewer and the artwork, to find commonality that extends both beneath and beyond language."
What initially sparked your interest in art?
My grandmother was an artist. Her beautiful oil painting, a still life, hung over my grandparents' fireplace. I would stare at it and wonder how she got the folds in the fabric to look so lifelike. That painting is in my home now. She also painted a series of watercolors that were abstract landscapes. I loved how these pieces looked like sketches made with paint.
My grandmother bought my first set of paints, pencils, and brushes. I also remember the first time she took me to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. She always encouraged my artistic expression. I remember she had a piece of mine, a surreal colored pencil drawing that I did in high school, framed and displayed proudly in her home.
What connects your work together, and what keeps you creating?
I start each piece, whether I am painting, printmaking, making a collage, or working in encaustic, in the same way. I begin by putting down shapes and colors until I can discern a greater relationship forming between these elements. I then work to enhance that relationship by adding color, shape, line, or markings. It’s an intuitive process. I don’t have an outcome in mind when I begin. The canvas is a living, breathing form for me—emerging, changing, always growing. The surprise, the unfolding of the work—I find that incredibly exciting.
I connect to my own spirit when I create. It helps me transcribe my internal experience for myself and others. I find the creative process invaluable for making meaning of my life experiences and better understanding myself.
Describe your work using three words.
Contemporary, abstract, expressionism.
What are you most proud of as an artist, whether it’s a specific moment or who you are as an artist?
I have been very fortunate to have been warmly welcomed into a vibrant arts community in the Hudson Valley of New York. I never could have imagined that I would one day be showing my work in exhibitions. And to be exhibiting alongside artists I have looked up to and respected for years is the icing on the cake. I am proud to be a part of this thriving artist community, and I can’t wait to see where the road takes me.
If you could be in a two-person exhibition with any artist from history, who would it be and why?
It’s a difficult choice between Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell for me. They were both in the early abstract expressionist movement, which I find inspirational. They both beat the odds that were against them to become frontrunners in the field of abstract painting. If I had to choose only one, I would pick Lee Krasner because she was the first woman to break into the abstract expressionist movement. I also identify with her in that she withdrew from her art practice for years to put her energy elsewhere and then came back to herself again, returning to her art practice with a vengeance. That definitely resonates with me.
