Robert Otto Epstein

'Tumble Block Sweater' ( 2013 )

18 x 14 in
edition of 5 posters for MATERIAL

Price: $125

Robert Otto Epstein


Uncle Brian

The rewiring of my brain, a joint venture of the National Transportation Safety Board and the Dairy Farmers Guild of Greater New York, has successfully been installed. God Bless America the fiber optician arrived during a re-airing of Bob Vila grooming his beard recently designated by the municipality of New Bedford’s Preservation Commission to be an historic landmark on my Gameboy device. After checking for glaucoma the broad brain technician who is wont to carry a laminated copy of his associates degree diploma in his unflattering briefcase, inserted a broadband network into my cranial joist adjacent to a memory of my third grade class enjoying a catered lunch sponsored in part by a local semi gloss cold cut purveyor and midway through I detected an impending reversal of fortune in my PVC piping due to a jackknifed soppressata while politely nodding at my lunchmate’s commentary on the nutritional and architectural benefits of Lunchables, explaining how the daily construction of his midday meal into a scaled down version of a metropolitan area will one day help him become a city planner. The fibromyalgian indicated that the procedure was complete by showing me the finger. We proceeded to share a generous plate of fish sticks and then I signed the work order form. I was told to keep the yellow copy for my records, which I did but have since lost. Moreover I have been advised by top level casting agents not to discuss in detail the guts of the program but suffice it to say, knowledge as it has come to be known in society through multitudinous systems of communication and modes of behavior reliant upon esoteric language found in doctor’s office periodicals and local news broadcasts, is nothing more than an unadvertised means of organizing mouth holes into assholes in the ‘topographical metropolis’ i.e. government issued crocs, The Cheesecake Factory, bathrooms covered in artificial turf, Prilosec popping tax preparers, apartments with suspicious looking window treatments, goose stepping hotdog vendors, alternative energy factories in midtown Manhattan where ‘moisture associates’ in fur coats and sweat pants run in place and perspire into a green powered supply chain for cash and to meet new people, fiduciary douche bags with below average absorption rates, widespread halitosis of the liver, not to mention hands free customer service representatives who talk into the phone like they’re smiling which causes carpal tunnel syndrome of the cheek. The Department of Agriculture had first approached me about the program after I had successfully won an appeal to release my food diary records citing the Freedom of Information Act. Nevertheless the assistant to the chief cattle rancher in charge of photocopying highly classified documents had heavily redacted my grub file in his posh cubical due to reasons of national security and an affinity for sniffing sharpies. Later that afternoon during a working lunch in the bowels of the Defense Department, Philip Seymour Hoffman made love to a turkey sandwich - hold the mayo - and a modest helping of coleslaw. His beverage of choice escapes me. Dental Hygienist Bosley inquired as to why PSH had chosen a mayoclinicless turkey breast sandwich and coleslaw which is known far and wide to contain the egg based exfoliating lubricant available in the perfume department at your local Macy's said DHB. PSH explained what was in the coleslaw on a dry erase board by writing the word coleslaw in all caps and circling it. Then he drew lines away from the word coleslaw and wrote what the ingredients were just above each line in all caps except for the word shredded which was all in lower case letters as he might have been distracted by Tom Selleck tuning his guitar across the room. DHB refused to accept the fact that there was no mayo no mayo no mayo in the coleslaw and submitted a requisition form for a travel size microscope which he received minutes later. DHB completed his cursory examination of the sample coleslaw and shook the freshly moisturized hand of PSH, apologizing for having lost the birth certificate of his eldest Cabbage Patch Kid.


Artist Bio

Robert Otto Epstein is an artist living and working in New Jersey. His current work consists of paintings and drawings on paper based on European and American fabric patterns and colored pencil or graphite drawings based on vintage (1980s/1990s) American and British designs for clothing and home decor. His work couples the geometric and design-based imagery imbedded in instructional diagrams and harkens back to the computerized digitization of 1980s era 8-bit schemata. Recent exhibitions include The Song Sings Itself, Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Larchmont, NY); Flat Frontal, Schema Projects (Brooklyn, NY); Robert Otto Epstein, Imogen Holloway (Saugerties, NY); Unhinged, Pierogi Gallery (Brooklyn); A Series of Alternating Uniform Spaces and Parts, Airplane Gallery (Brooklyn); Inside Voices, Parallel Art Space (Brooklyn); Grid/Graph, Mulherin + Pollard (New York); Uprise Art at Chelsea Market, Chelsea Market Concourse, (New York); and Pattern and Embellishment, Drive-By Projects (Watertown, MA).


Artist Site

www.robertottoepstein.com