Online Exhibition
New Works by Eva Robarts
For Gallery C.A.P.’s inaugural show, New York-based artist Eva Robarts (b. 1982, Miami) presents a selection of drawings and sculptures that highlight mark-making as a means of understanding and pursuing intimacy through material. Since childhood, Robarts has maintained a strong relationship with drawing, which now connects to a practice rooted in the process of identifying, perceiving, understanding, and establishing a bond with discarded materials she encounters throughout New York City. The artist has developed a distinctive aesthetic language utilizing found objects, typically of industrial or domestic origins, which she patiently flattens, bends, and joins to create new forms before assembling them into controlled compositions. The outcome resembles drawings in space—tight lines move across one another with a level of intentionality that makes it difficult to recall their previous functions. Whether on the page, wall, or floor, Robarts’ relationship with mark-making is evident and deeply rooted, demonstrating her meditative approach to exploring her environment, the way she navigates within it, and her curiosity to find a place amidst it all.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Preliminary sketches precede sculpture and play a functional role akin to architectural blueprints. They determine the approach to arranging found objects into structurally secure and compositionally sound sculptures. Other drawings emerge after creating a three-dimensional work, serving as a means of documentation—almost like photography—capturing various moments of work in flux. Not all drawings are defined by a sculptural counterpart and can exist independently. For Robarts, drawing acts as a language that grounds her approach to all creative endeavors and defines her sculptural aesthetic. Conceptually, her drawings on paper occupy the liminal space between process sketch and freestanding artwork. They involve layering paint pens and pencils of varying colors and thicknesses. Lines are retraced, revealing her process in dynamic compositions along with her test markings on the sides of the paper.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Robarts is drawn to materials that once held a domestic or functional role around which individuals’ lives had revolved, such as bicycles and push carts. Stays are the components of a bike that connect the rear wheel to the seat and are integral for maintaining structural integrity. Poetically, it is this connective role that Robarts identifies with—holding disparate parts together, supporting, and nurturing the desire to feel supported. For the artist, such support and her curiosity to seek it out by reviving the discarded symbolize a delicate love language. This stems from her own sense of intimacy and the establishment of connections with others through material, beginning with her own experiences and her own hand. For example, in 19 Trips to You (Stay Repetition) (2024), collected bike stays are carefully arranged one behind the other, uniting various pieces to create an elongated V-shape. Each piece fits snugly within the next, supporting each other as if in an embrace, with their individuated ends protruding at different lengths. With this, Robarts also recalls palm fronds, the leaves of palm trees, which surrounded her during her Miami youth. Historically, palm fronds have held joyous connotations, representing peace and eternal life. To Robarts, they embody strength and durability; she has watched them sway in tropical winds without breaking, instead bending and moving with them.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
The works collectively invite viewers into the intimate foundations of the artist’s practice and encourage further exploration of Robarts’ work from various perspectives. They assume an autobiographical quality, showcasing the objects Robarts encounters and how drawing and reworking them become ritual actions that are constantly revisited.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
The works reveal a person in process, firmly rooted in mark-making, with a strong, intuitive line rendering shapes that are retraced and layered in examinations of intimacy, connection, and self-worth.
Robarts holds a BFA in sculpture from Pratt Institute and has shown work at Berthold Pott, Cologne; Tatjana Pieters, Ghent; Ruttkowski 68, New York; Art Lot, Brooklyn; and The Hole, New York.
Written by Abby Caulkins
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
Eva Robarts
Name Here, 2024
Oil Pastel, Acrylic Silk Screen Ink
14 x 17 In.
35,6 x 43,2 Cm.
