Amaryllis and Coleus

Robert Kushner was part of a pioneering group of artists in the 1970s that reacted against the austerity of modernism by embracing various forms of decorative art. Kushner, along with Joyce Kozloff, Valerie Jaudon, Ned Smyth, and Robert Zakanitch, and others, established what became known as the Pattern and Decoration movement. Kushner studied at the University of California, San Diego and emerged in the early 1970s as a performance artist and worked with fabrics and costume/sculptures that were incorporated into his performances. Profoundly affected by a trip to Iran in 1974, the artist drew new inspiration for his work from the intricate patterns of Iranian tiles, architecture, and clothing.

In the mid-1980s, Kushner's interest in Greek mythology led him to incorporate a figurative and thus narrative dimension into his paintings. He began using gold leaf and slowly turned away from the figure and toward floral subjects. Kushner's most recent work has focused exclusively on floral subjects and often takes its inspiration from the artist's continued interest in non-Western cultures. "Amaryllis and Coleus" is from a series of floral paintings the artist executed on antique Japanese screens and includes decorative materials such as gold and silver leaf and accents of glitter.