The Fine Arts Program celebrates spring with Wild Gardens, a collection of colorful floral paintings from artist Robert Kushner.

These artworks combine large blocks of color, lavish application of paint, delicate drawing, and decorative elements of gold, copper, silver, and glitter. Together, these elements form the underpinning for a profusion of floral and plant motifs. Kushner strives to imbue these floral paintings with the power and beauty he experiences when looking closely at flowers. His artwork elicits feelings far different from many brought out by many other contemporary artists working today. Rather than express his personal sufferings or joys in paint, Kushner focuses on the beauty of flowers.

Born in Pasadena, California, in 1949, Robert Kushner lives and works in New York City today. He became an important artist in the 1970s, when he rebelled against the emptiness and exclusivity of much of the contemporary art he saw around him. Early on, Kushner was interested in pattern and decoration. As an artist, he was inspired by the great decorative painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, such as Paul Gauguin, Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, and Pierre Bonnard. Several trips to the Middle East and Asia exposed him to cultures that unabashedly focused on decoration over content in art. In his recent artwork, Kushner combines Asian and Western approaches to representation, monumentality, and intimacy. Kushner's goal is to make art that is contemporary and relevant, as well as aesthetically and spiritually uplifting.

The largest artwork in the exhibition is a 10-panel painting titled Spring Scatter Summation (2005). This is Kushner's most ambitious painting. Working directly from nature, he created the artwork over a seven-month period. This spectacular painting chronicles the changing floral progression of spring in the northern United States-from the first crocuses and forsythia in early spring to the peonies and irises at the end of the season. The flowers are depicted against irregular grids of painted sections and vertical columns of gold-leaf squares. The gold squares give the painting a beautiful luminosity, suggesting outdoor light. This multipanel artwork is installed in sections on both sides of the staircase and continuing down the hall of the Eccles Building atrium.

This text is drawn from the following: Essays by Robert Kushner and Michael Duncan in Robert Kushner: Wild Gardens (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2006); Peter Eleey, "Questions for an Interview, Some Answered," in Robert Kushner: Spring Scatter Summation (Holyoke, Massachusetts, Wistariahurst Museum, 2005); Robert Kushner: On Location (New York, DC Moore Gallery, 2007); and Edward M. Gomez, "Glittering Gardens" (Art in America, June/July 2005, pp. 160-165)