Robert Overby: Works 1969 - 1987 : Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway

Despite his prolific and diverse practice, Robert Overby (1935-1993) remains one of the best-kept secrets of Post-War American Art. Whilst rarely exhibiting during his lifetime, he nonetheless built up an extraordinary and multi-faceted body of work encompassing sculpture, installation, painting, photography, print and collage.

Overby was born in Harvey, Illinois. For most of his life he worked in Los Angeles, first as a successful graphic designer and subsequently as a visual artist. His most iconic early works, which he began in the late 1960s, take the form of architectural casts of doors, windows and facades made of rubber, latex and concrete; pieces that occupy a space between sculpture, painting, and installation. He was fascinated by the way in which objects hold and record the passing of time, as well as with the application and manipulation of various ‘surfaces’. Through his work, he would extend these ideas narratively and metaphorically, producing a sustained meditation on themes of time, space, memory, loss, beauty and decay.