Title

Essential Referencing: Recent work by John Robinson.

Venues

Bendigo Art Gallery (18 April 2009 – 24 May 2009)

Date

(2009)

Summary

Single-artist exhibition. Located: Australia (VIC). Paintings

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

Abstraction can have the power to touch on and suggest the essence of our existence and to be at odds with and reject the superficial, the obvious.
John Robinson 2009

This exhibition presents work by respected local artist John Robinson. Preparation for this exhibition began more than three years ago, and even through his illness during the last 12 months, Robinson strove to create a new body of work for this exhibition. John Robinson passed away in March 2009, before he could see this exhibition and catalogue realised. This exhibition includes a selection of drawings and paintings created by the artist between 2007 and 2009.

John Robinson was born in Melbourne in 1940 and graduated from RMIT with a Diploma of Art in 1962. On completion of his studies Robinson began exhibiting in both solo and group exhibitions, with his first major exhibition of paintings and woodcuts held at Argus Gallery, Melbourne and subsequently at Realities Gallery, Melbourne. In the late 1970s Robinson and others established a lithographic print workshop, Druckma Press, which he managed from 1978 to 1983; he subsequently founded his own press, Lithos Press, which printed editions for many established Australian artists, including John Brack and Fred Williams.

Robinson is perhaps most recognised for his work as a printmaker, although his earliest exhibitions were comprised primarily of photo-realist paintings. By the mid-1970s, however, the imagery in his work had become more abstracted. This exhibition presents a selection of works created in other media – drawing in oilstick and painting. Robinson considered that drawing, painting and printmaking were integral components of his artistic oeuvre, believing these three elements to be inextricably linked and that each cannot exist in art without reference to the other. [Gallery media, 2009].