The Ann Tower Gallery is pleased to present new paintings and sculpture by one of the region's most talented artists, Robert Tharsing, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art at the University of Kentucky. An early retirement from UK in 2002 has allowed Tharsing to spend nearly all his time working in his studios in Lexington and Nova Scotia.

Ever shifting between realism and abstraction, the current body of work, 11 large-scaled paintings, focuses primarily on the abstract. Since the late 1960s, geometry has intrigued Tharsing as way of constructing a painting. Early works employed a grid system of equally sized taped lines that divided the surface. Eventually, rectangles within the painting were taped and painted and re-painted to create patches of thick texture and rich color, layered upon thin areas. The new work introduces another simple element into the geometry - the circle. Like the earlier rectangles, the circles are taped and painted and re-painted until “they work…” While the paintings are the result of Tharsing’s personal, intellectual and formal investigations, they are easily accessible to viewers because of their lavish color, shapes, and surfaces. Like his representational paintings, these pulse with life and are infused with a sense of movement and drama that is slowly revealed.

The exhibition also includes several new pieces of brightly painted sculpture constructed from driftwood Tharsing collected along the shores of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The animated shapes of roots, limbs and other wood debris suggest certain creatures that he accentuates. A third component to the exhibition is a series of small paintings of Nova Scotia rocks, which Tharsing painted last summer. For more than a decade, the artist has painted from life the rocks he collects. He paints them life-sized and as accurately as possible, sitting on simple white boards in bright light with deep shadows. These beautiful intimate paintings have a Zen-like, meditative, and often comical quality.

Tharsing's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, he has had numerous solo exhibitions, and his work in is many public and private collections.