THE ARTISTS

Rachel Gordon & Robert Lange

Fashion designer Rachel Gordon teamed-up with artist Robert Lange for this fashion-meets-art show.

About Robert Lange

To understand all of the implications and ideas of Robert Lange's it is perhaps better to view his work as a foreigner to the art world. Unlike many artists whose work can easily be bottled into a genre or "it reminds me" category, Robert can only be classified by his signature stark lights and darks infused with vivid color.

At 25-years-old, Robert's painted world gives context clues into the history and collective memory of his life. A mathematical prodigy at 10-years of age perhaps accounts for his disciplined brushstrokes and the stylized geometric division of space on his canvases.

Robert studied under rigid traditional teachings at Pinkerton Academy, in Derry New Hampshire, yet found himself learning new perspectives at the world renown art college, Rhode Island School of Design. Robert was awarded a 4-year full merit-based scholarship based upon his outstanding portfolio. Robert spent most of his college career showing in multiple galleries in Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. He also took part in a project that developed three contemporary urban galleries in Providence.
Robert said, "Painting is a simple medium, all you need are, frames, canvases, paint and brushes, with these minimal means you can achieve a maximum effect."

In 2004, Robert’s move to the traditionalist community of Charleston, SC heightened his desire to create the picturesque. Robert’s paintings indicate an active attitude towards the crucial and missing bliss that life often pretends to have.

After less than a year in Charleston, with a barely dry signature on his diploma, Robert opened Robert Lange Studios on East Bay Street. The gallery space, like his paintings, is clean, simple, and strangely familiar and inviting.

Robert’s depiction of a heightened suburbia distances his work from the political commitment and social self-importance of most contemporary postmodern painters. Someplace between Charleston’s cobblestone streets and New York’s stark concrete living rooms, is the work of Robert Lange.

About Rachel Gordon

After graduating in 2006 from the College of Charleston, in Charleston South Carolina, Rachel Gordon was featured as one of the premier designers during the 2007 Charleston Fashion Week, a five-night celebration of fashion and Charleston’s burgeoning retail and design community.

For the event downtown Charleston’s historic Marion Square echoed New York’s Bryant Park during NYC Fashion Week with enclosed tents filled with the latest designer wares. Charleston magazine invited local retail stores to produce and present runway shows featuring their Spring 2007 collections.

Due to Gordon's success during CFW she created a line of ready to wear summer dresses, which were featured in a runway show held at Robert Lange Studios in May 2007. Gordon's dresses can now be found in stores around Charleston.