Robert Noonan takes many of his creative cues from the ceaseless wonders of land, air and water. His unique art conjures images of earth's restless strata, water etching patterns into sand and the arborescent wonders of our world.
At times, his materials playfully mislead the viewer. A piece that looks like wood is actually stone. Another appears to be shale but turns out to be wood. These intriguing transformations add to the art's appeal and encourage closer examination.
Although Noonan has expressed his creative nature throughout his life, the duties of fatherhood made him a better steward of time. The upshot was a memorable body of work. “I remember carving sandstone sculptures as a kid and drawing fantasy property maps at an early age,” he says. “I ‘sold' my first drawing, a football player with the wildcat head of our middle school mascot, to a fellow athlete in ninth grade for a package of chocolate chip cookies. When I took on the role of stay-at-home dad much later, I started to take my art more seriously, stealing away time during kid naps to draw, in detail, natural artifacts [that] I had collected over the years and animal subjects from photographs. As time progressed, I was able to spend more hours concentrating on art and my work, though still inspired by the natural world, gradually grew to be more abstract and more three-dimensional.”
Noonan used to struggle with the gap between an imagined work and the finished product. Most of his pieces start out as two-dimensional drawings. The unexpected elements of their three-dimensional fruition were difficult for him to accept, but this tension has served him well. These curious objects possess an organic appeal and maintain a refreshing dissimilarity from every other offering in strong group shows.
robertnoonanartanddesign.com | rnoonanartanddesign@aol.com
