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Bob Robinson – a Painter of Everyday Life - The Open College of the Arts

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Bob Robinson – a Painter of Everyday Life

A recent exhibition in Nottingham*, which I helped to curate, has highlighted the highly detailed figurative paintings of the artist Bob Robinson. Northern Ireland born Robinson has lived and worked in Nottingham since 1975, when he arrived in the City to study Fine Art at the local Art College. As a student he lived in the area of the City closest to the College and has continued to live there to this day. Over the years he has become embedded in this inner-City community, many of his paintings record his experience of living there. Other works offer a highly caustic view of everyday society, while yet others offer us a glimpse of scenes from his Northern Irish childhood.

IdentityCrisis

Robinson’s earliest work was made using pen and ink, highly detailed drawings constructed with a myriad of short black lines. These small-scale works laid the foundation for his later paintings, not only in their subject matter but also in the way in which they were constructed. Robinson employed a process of working that was slow and meticulous, creating works that cover every inch of available space. The result, drawings that need to be looked at with care, in order to catch every detail and incident depicted.
He retained this way of working when he moved onto painting, using a small pointed watercolour brush instead of a pen and acrylic paint instead of ink. He worked with the canvas lying flat on a table top, slowly building up the image with minute strokes of the brush. This change from drawing to painting allowed him to create larger images and to experiment with colour and composition.

TheGreatWall

Paintings from this period are typified by The Great Wall (1979), a night scene constructed in blocks of colour. The composition is almost symmetrical with the main figure, standing in profile, located in the centre of the painting. Robinson’s continued interest in detail is seen in the amount of attention he has lavished on capturing the variety of bricks in the background wall.

HomagetoDIYing

His work continued to develop when he moved on to using oil paint. The effect of this change can be seen in Homage to DIYing (1989). This painting is much larger than previous work and the composition much more dynamic. The obsession with detail continues, but now ranges from the large scale of the figures tangled in their attempts at home improvement, to the small scale of furniture and tools used to assist them.

ThePreacher

Another painting from this period documents a scene from Robinson’s youth. The Preacher (1990) depicts the weekly visit of a preacher to Robinson’s hometown, who attracted the young congregation to his sermons with the offer of free sweets for anyone who could answer questions on the Bible. All the elements of this narrative are skillfully captured in the painting. The composition contrasts the figure of the preacher, captured in profile, with the eager congregation, constrained by the dynamic perspective of the corner of the hall they are seated in.

BookOpen

MossBook Publications has now produced a 28 page limited edition booklet, documenting Robinson’s work; Bob Robinson – Paintings. The 21 x 16.5 cm publication contains 14 pages of images of paintings produced between 1979 and 2014 and two essays. It is available directly from the publisher at a special price of £3 (normally £5) plus post and packaging. To register your interest please go to the MossBook contact form on my website
*Bob Robinson, an Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Surface Gallery, Nottingham, 25th October to 20th December, 2014.
Copyright ©
Artworks copyright the artist
Text and photographs copyright the author


Posted by author: Derek Hampson

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