Robert Saffer is an abstract contemporary symbolist artist and addictions counsellor from Toronto, Canada. Robert describes his work as having a stark textured aesthetic with a fierce expressive power. “My aim is to choreograph a sense of movement and menace to express moods and emotions that challenge our very preconceptions of beauty. Let’s face it, love isn’t always beautiful, life isn’t always wonderful, but it is nevertheless a profound experience. WE must face our demons on so many levels. This is what the art attempts to do. The real question is — will we blossom into the best possible versions of ourselves?

You describe your work as ‘starkly textured’ with expressions of movement and menace. Can you tell us what this signifies to you and why you choose these specific terms to describe what you wish to encapsulate?

I think there is an illuminating quality, and I think that most of the paintings are texturized for this reason. I like to let my imagination run wild. So, there is an emotional que that happens when these starkly textured images are viewed. I know menace, traditionally has a negative interpretation, but that is part and parcel of the movement of every painting. What moves someone is a personal experience, but that has traditionally been the superpower behind abstract art.

How does your inner world and life experiences inspire you to create this work? And what role does the external world play in your process?

A mixture of anxiety, chaos, spirit, dealing with so many life and death situations as a former addict and now as an addiction’s counsellor. That might sound grim, but the truth is, art is an essential tool in absorbing so many lived experiences and packaging them in the best possible light. Finding balance in a painting is an equivalent to finding peace of mind. Colours alone are suggestive of our moods. The fact that anyone can pick up a brush and paint out their internal state is incredibly rewarding and therapeutic. But more to your question, the external world contributes to my moods and emotions, so it is actively involved in everything I paint.

You bring up radical practices from the 21st century. Can you give some examples of these practices? What holds them so important to you?

More and more art in the 21st century is evoking a form of interpretation which is why abstract artists like Damien Hirst for instance really made it big, allowed for a real deep conversation about how people relate to their own mortality, and what better way to show the dichotomy between the giant mammal (the great fish) and human nature. For me, radical is simply implying abstract decorations of hidden spirits.

I’m fascinated by Painterly attempts to let one’s unconscious memories and desires flow without constraints but always looking to expand my process of Abstract Expressionisms. I suppose because my own worldview was shaped by existentialism where the artists condition was of isolation and anxiety. I gained a lot of insight into this art form by examining works, most notably by Frank Kline in a work entitled ‘Moniter’ or William De Koonings and remember being mesmerized by ‘Number 15’ a 1951 Jackson Pollock art piece.

All these artists including Gerard Richter dripped paint from above as they moved continually around the canvas...the work therefore acts as a map of the artist’s movement, an expressionism of one’s physical actions where the painting is both chaotic and structured like the musical cadence we’re attracted to.

The exhibition is named 'Dark Blossom’. What inspired this name and what deeper significance does it hold?

When I began this piece, I was in anything-but-spiritual mood on the night of a pink moon. Suddenly moved to storytelling about these moods, my deepest inner thoughts and emotions would surface. I had no idea I was unconsciously aiming to awaken in abstract phenomena. But alas, this is my painting process. Pinks and blacks blossoming in the painting became symbolic of ‘being in the moment’ and transporting me out of my own headspace. Alas, a therapeutic attempt to let go let G-d. But I would say, Dark blossom at its very core, highlights the conflicting aspects of our human nature.

What techniques do you apply in your process to convey the stories/ideas you wish to communicate through your use of texture?

Like I said the work comes from inner thoughts, feelings, intuition. I think the texture and colours alone helps to build up the story involved in our own communication process. Abstraction is a language made of optical signs & signals; a reflective tool that decorates our being. Painting is an eternal return to our greater selves. At least this is the goal. It definitely is a useful tool in externalizing our perceptions of the universe.

The idea of essential truth reverberates through your work. Do you wish for the viewer to glean a specific essential truth from your art, or to apply their own understanding of essential truth via their unique lens?

An aura of investigative measures are being portrayed in my work. I try to challenge my own conceptions of the human condition, my own limitations. Trying to slow down as an endless range of effects runs through wild colourful terrains on the canvas each representing a specific feeling. Truth in many cases is an abstraction which can create a highly emotional & no doubt, aesthetic experience for the observer or the observing mind.

What do you hope your audiences to receive from you through your works of art?

To be moved in some way. Designs create visual sensations that we interpret very quickly, and I hope the audience will feel provoked in some way from the art pieces. Ultimately creating a somatic experience, meaning, the art or canvas is a conceptional representation of their own emotional map.

Why were you interested in doing a solo show as opposed to a group exhibition? And how does that affect how your art is seen by the audiences?

Best answered by an article I read some time ago; ‘A solo exhibition is both a mark of recognition and an opportunity to put a focused selection of work before the public. Where group exhibitions allow a curator to explore themes across a range of practices, the solo exhibition is the artist’s chance to demonstrate the strength and depth of their work.’

Robert Saffer, photographed by Amber Liang

Paintings for the Dark Blossom Exhibition were selected by intuition and designed in rich hallucinatory flavour to highlight this method. They symbolize an essential truth, an evolving of our emotional condition and to awaken the spiritual experience in abstract phenomena.

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