Artscope Magazine: Visual poet Robert Saunders

Robert Saunders
July/August 2015

Playing By His Own Rules

By Taryn Plumb

                                                        Bake King, No Winner, 2015, antique baking pan, nuts and bolts, glass and wood.

Robert Saunders has never found amusement in other people’s games.

As a kid, for example, he would sit down to Chinese checkers with his grandmother, and although he recalls “hating it,” he would keep playing, just following his own private imaginary strategy. Similarly, in lieu of baseball – the traditional pastime of many boys – he concocted a way to run the bases, score and strike out simply by rolling four dice.

That flouting of conformity and adherence to his own rules translates into his large body of abstract artwork, composed of installations and drawings that the Gardiner, Maine artist refers to as “visual poetry.”

His pieces are composites of intersecting clean lines, crisp shapes, stray numbers and letters, as well as assemblages of various found items. The effect – once the eyes adjust to the mélange – is a unique sort of symmetry, a mode of communication and a game all of his own making.

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