LONDON • ATHENS • BARCELONA • SALZBURG

The ‘Trash Art’ Series | Development Process

2019-2022

 

Robert resumed 2D painting as his main focus in 2019 when he lost his almost

perfect six year old seaside studio to Council redevelopment.

(The development area remains locked up to this day) .

The first works were a long series of abstract collages on paper called ‘Cuttups’ in

which he began to attach old life drawings and other older works on paper onto

newly invented backgrounds. He then moved to a live/work studio space. Always his ideal and which greatly suited the Covid lockdowns that followed. He likes to wander in and out of the work area for a think , and whilst watching paint dry. Robert then produced large acrylic works on canvas , at first figuratively for about a year.These works were drawn and adapted largely from internet material and were quite varied in both style and content. Early in 2021 he made another switch,

deciding to rework/recycle many of these works as abstractions , seeking a greater freedom and experimentation into his work process . Usually the figurative works were initially turned upside down or sideways in order to lesson their impact as external representations, before areas of them begun to be deleted and replaced . His aim was to keep some sections of the figuration where possible and all of these works retain varying large or small degrees of such 'evidence.’

As the new works developed the artist found that responding directly to the

underlying forms spaces and colours of the figurative works helped to trigger new

more abstract ideas , and next the layering of sections of the Cuttup drawings onto

their surfaces added a further stimulus, structure, visual depth and a valued

‘history’ to the overall process. Some the the works use smaller old canvases fixed together irregularly and which end to have a slightly more casual ’punk look,’

There are now about 15 completed works in this ongoing Trash Art Series, which

owe some apparent acknowledgement to both abstract expressionism and to art

pauvre.

 

​Robert States :-

“I have always enjoyed questioning what might constitute a ‘contemporary’ painting

and like to play with often conflicting elements within a single canvas .. I take particular pleasure when some of these elements surprise me by ‘just about hanging

together’ creating what I hope constitutes ‘an edge’ “

2022

R.B 2022.