Topsy

"Topsy" is a representational abstract of an elephant, acrylic on canvas. You don’t have to leave Brooklyn to find the heart of Robert Polito’s art—it’s right here, where he’s lived and worked his whole life. He’s a Renaissance man, a musician—composer, singer, guitarist—and a visual artist—abstract and representational. “I was born to be creative,” Polito says. “My passion is the creative process and the similarities and differences between art and music.”

Improvisation is the key element of both disciplines. “When I paint,” Polito says, “I like it to be purely improvisational. So I pick a canvas, I use all different sizes from small to large, then I reach into my box of paint tubes and without looking, I arbitrarily pick out anything from 6 to 12 tubes. That becomes my palette. At that point, I just start painting without thinking about it too much.”

Being a lifelong musician, he says, the way he paints seems like jazz. “After the first few strokes, the painting kind of tells me what it wants to be and practically paints itself. I like to refer to my stuff as jazz on canvas. And just as a jazz musician tries to explore different avenues, I let the paintings happen, however they happen. If it’s pure abstract, that’s fine. and if there’s something representational about it, that’s fine too. No preconceived notions. Just my creative flow.”

Polito says that even as a small child, he knew he would spend his life in artistic endeavors. After a near fatal illness at the age of 8 (rheumatic fever), his father taught him to play guitar and piano. “My enduring love affair with music and the arts began.” When rock and roll came along, and with it, The Beatles, then Broadway, and hundreds of others inspired him to become a stage performer. “By the time I was 25, I was supporting myself and my young family through music, playing five to six nights a week.” He has performed on the East Coast for more than 40 years, now, and found intense enjoyment in entertaining people. “While I still compose and play gigs, playing music was not destined to be the only artistic journey for me.” He suffered progressive joint damage as a result of his bout with rheumatic fever, so playing instruments became more and more difficult. One day, by chance, a good friend handed him a brush, paints, and a canvas and told me, “Paint!" From that first instant he dipped a brush into paint and placed it on canvas, he knew he had found his second calling. “Every stroke I painted felt like I was playing my guitar. I was painting my music!” That was in 2010, and he’s been painting ever since.

Largely self-taught and instinctive at art making, Polito says he has
a natural ability to express emotion. His pictures are moody—sometimes bright, sometimes dark. “What I always hope for is that after the first few strokes, I just get into the zone. Tthe painting goes along without me thinking about it, and there’s a sense of manic creativity in my head.” Other times, he says, he is more deliberate and takes more time. “I have garnered a thorough knowledge of color and composition in the last several years, by experimenting. As a lifelong musician, I live in an aural world, and have translated the music in my head into vivid, bold, and unique visual art. The different styles I work in are a result of years of discovery and exploration of art and music. Both are life, love and magic to me,” he says.

“I set no limits for my work, and express myself freely, without restrictions, or preconceived notions of what is acceptable. It is my deepest wish to expose the light as well as the shadows, bring sound into the silence, silence into the noise, and insight into the struggles of life. My work is unique, provocative, and varied. I believe my bold style and intense use of color place me among the more interesting and even compelling artists working now.”