Robin is an award winning painter out of Newbury, Massachusetts. (2009 International Encaustic Painting Conference Award for Best in Show in the exhibition curated by Nicholas Capasso, chief curator of the Decordova Museum; winner of the "Spotlight on the Arts Award" for 'Outstanding Abstract Artist of 2009'). Robin concentrates primarily on the ancient wax based medium of Encaustic paint, a molten beeswax mixed with resin and dry pigments, which she incorporates mixed media, vintage materials, textiles and found objects.
Robin's newest work is significantly large in scale, mainly 3ft to 4ft square , a huge expansion in comparison to her previous series "Above and Beyond, made up of over 200 individual 6" x 6" paintings. This particular series differs in the fact that scale commands you to be physically encompassed in the atmospheric emotion translated so seductively in wax.
Confluence #9, encaustic, oil, aluminum and glass on braced birch, 48 x 48
Each painting in this series contains within it an obvious and ethereal seascape at first glance. Upon a second look, an extended sense of light bursts through bossy cumuli or slight shards of sunrise cut through a rebellious horizon. They remain ambiguous, yet curiously nostalgic, pushing the viewer to revisit images from their own recollections. Painted intuitively, and not from reference, these pieces translate an individual perspective of space, evoking an ebb and flow, the constant conjoining and separation of ocean and land, calm yet anxious, peaceful yet frightening, reserved yet dominant; interchanges so indicative to life they are discernibly "tidal".
Divergence #2, encaustic, oil and aluminum on braced birch, 36 x 36
Confluence #11, encaustic, oil, copper and yarn on braced birch, 36 x 36
Confluence #7, encaustic, oil, aluminum, glass, fabric and bark on braced
birch panel, 48 x 48
This convergence of opposites is unconventionally translated by the juxtaposition of Robin's chosen medium: thick ethereal wax on cold sheet metal, soft childhood yarns meandering through shards of broken glass, thick copper remnants layered with delicate antique lace.
Above and Beyond #320, encaustic and mixed-media on braced birch, 6 x 6
Though the sculptural elements of wax and organic lines, themes and contemporary concepts pervade this work, so does the artists own intimacy with them. Incorporating family heirloom crochet, bark fallen from the trees around her studio, pieces of her handmade sari wedding dress, nails found in the basement of her father’s workshop, vintage love letters salvaged from a relatives attic, this work elicits a deep sense of the past and future all while keeping them benignly impersonal.
Although familiar as "landscape" or "seascape", this work is confounded by becoming more of a memory than a representation, incorporating the salvaged elements of emotion and object or fundamentally, that which "Remains of the Day." This show runs thru August 2nd!
