A flower is a flower is a flower is —-. “Le beau est toujours bizarre”, said Baudelaire. Why do the defined, round edges of the white calla lily in-bloom remind me of you? My eyes glaze the carpel, stick to the stamen, like a monstrous hummingbird, like a greedy fly. Is it that I have hopelessly fallen into a convulsive state of associative visions and erotic hallucinations? Is it that nature herself speaks through her floriferous avatars to taunt the racing mind of the lover? Petals evoke the shapes of desires hidden and unseen.
Robert’s work brought style and broke stigma through the representation of styles and stigmas. I remain devout to his fascination with the body, elevated to scientific precision. Derrick Cross, Ken Moody, Ajitto. Black bodies made through lenticular transfiguration into nero marquina marble. There all is order and beauty: luxury, calm and lust.
In Self-Portrait (1988), you held a metal cane with a skull horn, your hand so nigh to its edge, your life so nigh to death. Robert’s oeuvre evokes the great tragedy of desire only resolved through untimely death. Through repression, through taboos, through disease, light escapes. The flower is a lover, but every lover is a fool. The unwithering pistil of want lives on.
-Ruby Thelot