Bob Recine

Bob Recine
Artist
City of residence, NYC, NY

WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM

During the late 1970’s in New York City, Bob Recine, at the time a musician and aspiring artist, befriended Andy Warhol. This crossing of paths strongly influenced Bob Recine’s further career. The iconic artist, rumored to be extremely fascinated by hair, was the one who inspired Bob Recine to explore art – with hair as a central component.

Recognizing his extraordinary talent, Warhol connected him with famous hairdresser Jean Louis David in the French capital. Moving to Paris turned out to be a wise move as the eccentric character took him under his wings and taught him hair sculpting as an art form. When Bob Recine left Paris, his portfolio was packed with innovative visions.

Now, years later, Bob Recine collaborates with contemporary celebrities like Lady Gaga and fine artists like Vanessa Beecroft and Bjarne Melgaard.

His work can be delicately uncomplicated, yet it is bold and untraditional, integrating unusual materials like cellophane, hairclips, playdough, plastic, headphones – even glass. It reflects a finesse, beautifully documented through collaborations with leading fashion and fine art photographers such as Mario Sorrenti, Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Helmut Newton, and Irving Penn. 

COL: What motivates you (main inspiration/muse)? 
BR: I have no need for motivation, nor inspiration — for I am, both, motivated and inspired.

COL: What is your idea of the perfect piece of art?
BR: Transformation, the alchemy of understanding is art, itself.

COL: What - in your opinion - is the main difference between fashion and art?
BR: From a perspective of creativity, there is no difference. Both are about creation — the creation of consciousness.

COL: What is your definition of beautiful?
BR: The place where I find beauty is a place of wonder.  And I, also, believe that it is too early in our understanding to know what beauty actually is.

COL: Is there a message to be read from your work, politically or otherwise?
BR: Although I do use objects of political contention — whether it be a gun or images indicative of sacrifice — I never create with one specific message in mind.  Instead, I prefer to let the viewer provoke himself and decide what that message may be for his own perception.

COL: How has digital media opened up creative possibilities for you as an artist?
BR: To be honest, I find more frustration than divination from this overabundance of information — which I find is solely the exclusion of possibility.

COL: What is your greatest extravagance?
BR: I find the greatest pleasure in being able to think alone — to be unbridled in the constructive process of the purely imbued object.

COL: What do you consider your greatest achievement?
BR: To have been able to unify all of my seemingly varied worlds — of 'fashion', of 'art', of 'study' — into one singular understanding for people to see that all is interconnected.  This is the unified theory of 'creation.'

COL: What is uncontaminated to you?
BR: 'Uncontaminated', to me, means to take away the preconceptions of what 'modern art' should be.  To promote a boundless existence, where the whole concept of art and the artist finds itself in an entirely new universe.