Roblog

March 14, 2008

Cyprus art 2008

After nearly a week out here in Cyprus, I have made a series of small watercolour and gouaches mostly from direct observation from my drives around the island. I am only here until next wednesday, so I do not expect to develop them until I get back. If I can get at least two new works for my show in Chichester then i will be very happy.

Weather remains a mixed bag. We had a spectacular thunderstorm the other night and today is extremely windy. I think my images at least convey that it is not the summer and I must admit, that when you take the heat away from Cyprus, it does all look a bit tacky.

I am going to make a prediction that Wales will lose against France tomorrow (6 nations rugby) and not win the grand slam - I would like them too, and I am going to visit a welshman tomorrow to watch the match in a cyprus cafe.. but I am not optimistic.

Posted by robbie at 1:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 12, 2008

Cyprus again

So here I am 5 days into being in Cyprus. I decided to go out as my research bid to go to India fell on deaf ears. I am spending nearly two weeks at Cyprus School of Art in Lemba trying to make some additional works for my show in Chichester in December. I have hired a car and have been drving around and doing small watercolour and gouaches to work from when i get home. So far so good - no major breakthroughs and the work is quite familiar to my other jaunts here.

It is weird being here when the weather is moderate (but still tropical compared with Edinburgh) - the place seems more pedestrian because of it. There are very few students here and two left this week. However it is very nice to get away from work at eca before the onslaught of Summer School.

I will post some of the new pictures soon.

Posted by robbie at 8:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 21, 2008

Portraits, Leith, Cyprus and India

Time marches on. It is now nearly the end of term 2 at Edinburgh College of Art and I am sitting at home, having taken a few days off with a bad bug. This has given me time at last to freshen up my website and preen some of the gallery pages from all the inconsequential work. Since I started this version of the website in 2004, I tended just to put up all the work I did at the time, probably just to prove that I am still making work. When I was painting in Hastings, I was just so pleased to be making any art at all, that every scrap of creativity went up. Now, with the chance to review and edit it down to one page, my Hastings period reveals to me a time of relearning my skills and re-evaluating what picture making means to me. I am still very proud of the fact that I have taken risks in my employment, which has always been informed by trying to find the right balance between making art and facilitating education.

So, now I find myself in year in to my new life in Edinburgh. Catie has moved up and is also painting and teaching. My job role at eca has been fluid flexible and quite demanding. But, I am still managing to paint as I have finally realised that I have to use most of my available free time to make art if I am ever going to develop. This has meant far fewer opportunities to see family and friends and far less gallivanting across the country or abroad.

From the period I moved to Leith with Catie, I have solely used the interior of our rented Georgian townhouse flat as a backdrop for subject matter. I have done more direct observational drawing and painting than I have since I was a student, and I have learned so much by doing so. I think it has recharged my pictorial armoury and freed me from the often-tiresome need for inventing compositional devices. Using a combination of biographical with observed topographical elements has allowed me to reflect on a more explicit portrait of my new life with Catie. While I have maintained my gut need for flippancy and irony in the use of a collection of soft toy animals, I am trying to evoke a greater depth of time and place.

Most recently, I have completed a large two panel portrait of Catie with our soft toys (the bears!) revealing the exuberant and delightful space we live in. The carrot for this was to enter the BP portrait award. While I am pleased with the ambition of the picture and its sense of place, I am not sure whether it works on the level of a portrait and I am not optimistic that it will be successful in being accepted for the show.

Here are eight stages of the portrait which I did almost entirely from working in situe over about 5 weekends.

I have three other things I am developing;
In December, I am showing at the Otter Gallery in Chichester, a compendium of works I did from the times I visited and worked Cyprus from 2002 to the present. There is also a possibility to show it in Cyprus College of Art later and I am trying to pull together a catalogue and possibly find a venue in Edinburgh also. I have never shown most of this work before and I am delighted to finally have the opportunity. I hope to make one more visit to Cyprus to complete the cycle of work for the show.

While I have been living in Leith and particularly Leith Links, I have started to research its history and how it remains such a distinctive and vibrant part of Edinburgh. The history of the Links themselves is fascinating, having been the place of the first golf course and the base for Oliver Cromwell’s men. Therefore, my next series of artworks are going to use my research as the background for what I hope will be a new pictorial development in my work. For further information see here.

I am also trying to find ways to make an extended visit to India to develop new lines of research. I have discovered that in the new India with one of the fasting growing economies in the world, there is a newfound confidence in contemporary painting that uses narrative and sense of place. Directly at odds with esoteric contemporary western art, this new art celebrates both hand skills and crafts, yet places itself in a world of mass media and conceptual ideas. I feel there is much for me to learn and experience and I am waiting with baited breadth, the result of a research funding application.

Posted by robbie at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 17, 2007

Catharine's Shoes on a blog

Look at this

say no more really!

Posted by robbie at 7:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Bears of Wellington Place

I had a week on my own as Catharine went down to Reading to clear out her house before it was sold on Friday. I had a busy week at work as we were hosting the University Association of Lifelong Learning Conference on Monday and Tuesday. So it was late nights all week including my Pictorial Figure Composition evening class on Wednesday. I am really enjoying this class as I get to teach what is my passion. No rest for the wicked as on Thursday, Catharine had sent all her stuff up with a ‘man with with a van’ (actually his name was Sam) and help him put it all into storage until we can figure out where it can all go.

I had to get at least three very small painting finished this weekend in order have them dry in time for framing for the Scottish Gallery Xmas show. So I have been enjoying just simply painting little snippets of our flat with our collection of bears. It is so long since I have so much ‘look and put’ painting (well ‘look and put and add a bit of my own’ really) and it is about time. This is how to refuel your image bank and be able to paint things out of your head with authority. These are not exceptional pictures but they feel right and the right direction. The bigger one in the picture is just a limbering up for the portrait I want to do for the BP portrait award.

Posted by robbie at 7:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)