Robert Oblon, Sr.
Painting Number 7, 1986
48 x 36 inches
Oil on Canvas

© 1986 Robert Oblon, Sr.

Robert Oblon, the artist, has been casting bronze since the early 70s. His work is a narrative surreal imagery using the female breastplate as his palate. His bronze sculpture are taken from live models using molds taken directly from the model and then derives a wax pattern positive of the breastplate that he then refashions to create his image( see The Process). The artist may spend months on a single concept before he feels that the sculpture is ready for the bronze casting process. Once the sculpture is cast in bronze, he finishes the bronze himself. Some of these works have been mounted on the wall and his most recent sculpture have been placed on a fabricated steel base to bring them off the wall and into the realm of real life. The sculpture are "in your face" in the sense that you first see them as traditional figurative sculpture, but upon further inspection, the viewer is taken by surprise as to the image in front of them. Oblon has taken what we might assume is traditional figurative sculpture and transformed it into surreal image using other body parts to function as nipples and some of the sculptures, he has replaced the breast nipple with salt shaker heads of cast silver as a means of his narrative story telling of our preoccupation with the female body and in his case "how we are fixated on the female breast and it's function".