Black Hole Gallery, 403 Main St in Rockland, will host Carver Hill Gallery FOR A POP-UP SHOW of Ron Rovner’s work to open on Friday, May 18th, from 5 – 8 pm.
Ron Rovner lived in Maine and vacationed in Santa Fe for 35 years. Now he does the opposite. His interest in art is a common story; he is a music and science guy. A practicing dermatologist for 3 decades, Rovner is also a classically trained pianist. For him, art is the natural expression that ties the two together; his goal is to create works which emphasize the musical fundamentals of harmony, balance and rhythm.
Rovner started making stained glass pieces early on. He was clearly influenced by Craftsman era architecture and the organization of his shapes was an indication of what would evolve into his current paintings. From glass, he segued into wood constructions, but that got tedious and the process was long and labor intensive. The idea of painting started to enter into the picture.
“I woke up one night and was at an impasse, and then it hit me.” At 2 a.m. he started thinking about the 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg and his 12-tone structures. “The music is very difficult to listen to. Some people call it music for the eye, not for the ear, but it’s interesting to study and observe on paper. The idea of turning it into art was intriguing.”
Some of Rovner’s work speaks more to the feeling or emotional response to the music, and other works reflect the actual construction of music; meaning the latter works are comprised largely of elements that represent Rovner’s visual interpretation of that music.
His “Nachtmusik” pieces (inspired by music of the early twentieth century serialist composers, particularly Arnold Schoenberg) are complex variations of similarly complex pieces of music. The more straightforward series he creates are interpretations of beautiful, subtle compositions.
There are three variations possible in the context of Schoenberg’s principles: inversion (upside down), retrograde (backward), or retrograde inversion (upside down and backward). The symbols Rovner has created represent these cariations, and also unmistakably evoke the Southwest in terms of palette and symbolism, thereby reconciling ancient and contemporary aesthetics.
“My process includes reconciling apparent opposites such as the ancient with the contemporary, the angular versus the lyrical, and amorphous color background fields with bold foreground figurations. My goal is to create work which combines the creative aspects of music and visual art which represents something more than the mere sum of its often disparate parts.”
TWO WEEKENDS ONLY! OPENING FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2018. Join us for a glass and a nibble of from 5 – 8 pm and enjoy “GOOD AFFORADABLE ART!”
BLACK HOLE GALLERY HOURS: 5/18 – 5/20 & 5/25 – 5/27 Fri 12 – 5, Sat 10 – 5 & Sun 12 – 3
403 Main Street Rockland 207-808-2141
