One of our biggest challenges these days is that so many people are locked into their opinions and world views. Particularly troubling to Montpelier artist Rob Hitzig are people in the news who are absolutely certain they are right — and who in some cases are doing terrible damage. He sees art as a way to open minds, and when it asks questions and creates uncertainty, it makes space for conversations.
“I want it to be open, confusing, unpredictable,” Hitzig said of his art, at the Jan. 9 opening of “Planting Confusion, Sowing Doubt,” his solo show at the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery. “I’m trying to create something where there isn’t certainty — that creates questions, that’s open to interpretation.”
Hitzig’s paintings — with their geometric designs, amorphous shapes, and vibrant colors — stand out against the gallery’s white walls and resonate in the space, almost as though they were created for it. Actually, more than half of them were. His exhibit was scheduled about a year in advance, so he used that time to create some larger works especially suited to the two gallery rooms.
Inspiration for materials he used for this exhibit came in February 2020, when he attended an art show in New York City and was impressed by how two artists were using OSB (oriented strand board) and MDO (medium density overlay) plywood — two inexpensive, industrial-grade plywoods that provide great textures for paint and shellac.
Hitzig immediately began experimenting with the materials, but found it was extremely difficult to cut them so he could fit multiple paintings together, as he wanted to do. Fast forward to 2025, when he located a CNC, a computer numerical control router, to make the high precision cuts he needed.
That allowed him to design shapes on the computer, cut them with the CNC, paint them, and then assemble them. His painting “Be Right There” shows how he used this process to create “three separate paintings that (he) collaged together.”
Another work, “Square the Circle,” is a mesmerizing collage of three irregularly shaped paintings that together form an irregularly shaped, seven-sided work. There’s not a square or circle in sight, so what does the name mean?
“I try to make the names as abstract as the piece,” Hitzig said in an interview before the opening. “I don’t want the names to actually relate to the paintings themselves. I don’t want to describe. I don’t want the viewer to see a name, and say, ‘Oh, that’s what it is.’”
Hitzig has a great eye for blending interesting geometric designs, bands of vibrant colors without any color pattern, multiple layers of paint — which sometimes creates a blurring effect — and shellac into a thought-provoking painting. The plywood provides texture, and, surprisingly, shellac on unpainted pieces of these plywoods is beautiful.
The CNC router also allowed him to design and cut amorphous shapes that he then painted. Again, his expert eye for interesting shapes and coordinated vibrant colors creates intriguing works.
“Planting Confusion, Sowing Doubt” is open to the public in the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery at 111 State Street, Montpelier, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (except for the lunch hour), through March 27. There will be a reception during ArtWalk on Feb. 6, from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
