Muriel Guépin Gallery is pleased to present a group show of two young talented American abstract painters who both use a multi-layered process.  While Robert Szot works harken back to abstract expressionism in its form and content, Renee Phillips finds her inspiration in nature and life cycles. The intense re-working of the canvas results in highly tactile, textural and seductive surfaces in Phillips’ paintings while Robert Szot’s intricate structural composition and generous gestural juxtaposition of colors result in vibrant canvases where control and emotions both co-exist.

Robert Szot understands and lives through his paint, not being intimidated by the qualities of it, but rather finding his home in it.  He embraces natural and flowing forms as an extension of his self-expression, almost as a stream of consciousness.  Finding inspiration in music and sentimentality, his pieces are undeniably human in nature.  His compositions seem to burst past their canvas boundaries with vibrancy and expression, mimicking natural and man-made structures.  Every piece has its own palette, creating time capsules with unique moods for the viewer to get lost in. Szot relies on his paint to tell his narrative, rather than using illustrative storytelling to convey his ideas.

Renee Phillips, like Szot, intensively layers and reworks her art until she gets a piece she is content with. Unlike Szot though, her work is heavily rooted in the rhythms of life, growth, decay, and rebirth. Her paintings work as a pause in time to show these rhythms on a macro and micro level.  In her work she uses elements such as heat, wind, and water, to emphasize her ties to nature and to create texture and movements. By exploring further these elements through the actions she takes to manipulate them on canvas, her connection to the natural world becomes even stronger.