Roberto Azank

Roberto Azank was born in 1955 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the grandson of an oil painter and the son of a master embroidery designer. At the age of fourteen he won first prize in painting at his high school. He went on to study photography and later architecture at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1979 he moved to the United States, where he worked in different fields while continuing to paint and experiment with a range of artistic forms and media.

Azank’s body of work in the early 1980s consisted of acrylic abstractions where he explored color and form. He soon turned to oils, which offered a greater range of luminosity and control. At the same time he began producing fractal imagery on one of the first generations of personal computers. Using algorithms developed by Benoît Mandelbrot, he generated images that translated mathematical structures into visual form and emphasized color as a central element. These fractals were exhibited as prints and distributed widely through posters and T-shirts at Macworld and other conventions, where works including Dragon Tree became recognized as among the first fractal images presented as art rather than as scientific diagrams. In the 1990s Azank developed the still life paintings for which he is best known, carrying over lessons from fractal geometry into his practice. Each painting begins with a series of abstract color studies before objects are introduced. Flowers, fruit, and vessels are composed within these fields, recombined from fragments of real plants and constructed through fine sable brushes, layered glazes, and razor-cut details.

Azank’s paintings were first shown in the early 1990s in Puerto Rico, Miami, and New York, and by the middle of the decade his exhibitions extended to Toronto, Houston, and Chicago. In 1997 his work was presented at the Consulate General of Argentina in New York. From 1998 through the early 2000s his still lifes appeared in galleries and art fairs across the United States and Europe. Museum exhibitions followed, among them the Vero Beach Museum of Fine Art in 2003 and a retrospective at the Unison Arts Center in New Paltz in 2005. His work has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Business Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, and other publications, and it is represented in collections including American Express Financial Advisors, Sprint Telecommunications, the Washington Convention Center, and Robert Miller in New York.