“Dance expresses an incredible sense of life and movement. Observing and drawing from dance has been a focus of my art for over 50 years and has evolved into many styles and iterations. Capturing the gesture and pose of human movement is challenging. The impulses that direct my work come from years of sketching live dancers, from ballet to contemporary modern dance. My paintings are not unlike a calculus of form in time and space, a calligraphy, or fluid hieroglyphics. Color, texture and layering appropriate a cultural artifact of movement and expression.  

In 1973 I began making gesture drawings during ballet classes at Ohio State University. I transferred to and graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976. I have used dance as a primary source for my marks, which have evolved from rounded, strobe-like forms to current totemic swooshes often mistaken as East Asian calligraphy. Since 2000 I have prepared my canvas surfaces with collage for cultural referencing and messaging, leaving the collage exposed within the marks. This serves as a visual zeitgeist, as catalogue of place and culture. Combined with my dancer/marks, my work synthesizes place, rhythmic forms and visual energy. 

Being a deaf artist situates me in a unique experience. My disability leaves me sensitive to body language and the implications of gesture. Although I can hear music with the help of my hearing aids, I look for meaning in the way people move. My inner dance world is important to me. I communicate my deaf self through these marks.” – Robert Wright