︎
Ominous
9 x 14 inches
ink on paper
2022

“I’ve made drawings for years and recently I have been focused on shading over what I call divisions; I fill in the empty spaces of the design with more shading, thus creating a kind of puzzle or game that keeps me focused on what might the outcome be. After doing hundreds and hundreds of drawings, I started expanding the shading or scribbling to cover the drawing, allowing small spaces to be visible, which is a subconscious type of experience. I relate the drawing to painting and have yet to develop a way to transfer my idea. The unique aspect of art is the challenge that discovery is an exciting experience.”

Robert Sestok is a painter and sculptor living and working in Detroit. His work has been exhibited at Cranbrook Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Marlborough Gallery (New York City, NY), and the Detroit Institute of Arts and Wayne State University, where his work is held in permanent collection. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner and Erb Foundation grants, and National Endowment of the Arts. A mentor to young artists, Sestok built City Sculpture in 2014, an art park that operated in Detroit’s Cass Corridor for public use and enjoyment until 2021. He was awarded the Kresge Fellowship in visual arts in 2017 and an AXD Grant from Creative Many 2019 to create a slide show of his artistic life in Detroit. An extension of the slide show is a new documentary film about his life as an artist and his influences, currently in production. This summer Sestok’s sculptures are a part of Krasl Biennale (St. Joseph, Michigan), and this upcoming fall he will exhibit new abstract wor in a one-person show at the Simone DeSousa Gallery.


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Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

Three Fold recognizes, supports, and advocates for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We operate on occupied territories called Waawiiyaataanong, named by the Anishinaabeg and including the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Bodewatomi (Potawatomi) peoples. We hold to commit to Indigenous communities in Waawiiyaataanong, their elders, both past and present, and future generations.