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| The Tulips - The Paranoia of NOT Being
Masculine "While living in Soho, NY during the 1970's I met artists from nearly every possible movement. From Photorealists to Conceptualists, from Fauxes to Abstract, I met them all. I had met Lowell Nesbet and was aware of his flower paintings and was also conscious of the many female pattern painters. While exhibiting with the Hundred Acres Gallery, in Soho, I shared a space with Cynthia Carlson who I considered to be one of the best. When I started painting symbols, I developed the "Black Tulip". It was a flower. Men, heterosexually speaking, didn't paint flowers. I they didn't paint pink. I consider myself a special man because I'm not afraid to face my own paranoias. So I had to paint a flower, and I had to paint in pink. I was very aggressive with these first pink paintings of flowers. They were sloppy and the flower was always black. My heritage is Dutch, so the flowers had to be tulips The tulip is my symbol for man's sensitive side, for his paranoia of not being masculine. Its is not about homophobia. It is about doing whatever you want, even if it means painting with the color pink." Robin VanArsdol - 1998 |