Robin Smith
Robin is a painter who originally developed intricate, abstract paintings with interlocking geometric and organic coloured forms. Over the last few years Robin has focused on portraiture created out of bold abstract shapes, predominantly creating female portraits. Robin applies his intuitive painterly techniques by building up form and colour to shape the figure and background. Working on canvas and board, Robin combines acrylic, emulsion, pen and soft pastels to build intense, colour rich layers. Robin shifts between creating works that focus on a singular figure to paintings that have multiple figures woven together. He extensively reworks compositions and colour combinations, working across up to 15 paintings at a time.
The portrait subjects in his paintings originate from multiple sources, many are women Robin knows; his carers, ActionSpace staff, fellow artists, others he has imagined or inspired to capture from brief encounters. The stylised, full-face portraits saturated with vivid colour create bold, characterful figures, which are both individually fascinating and mesmerising as an assembled group.
Exhibitions
- Patterns of My Mind, The Out There Art Fair, Cockpit Arts Winter Open Studios, 2019 (group show)
- VITAL MIX: Assembled Lines, Studio RCA, 2019 (group show)
- Art is Part of The Equation, Royal Academy, 2019 (group show)
- Out There Art Fair, Cockpit Arts, 2018
- The Out There Art Fair, Cockpit Arts Christmas Open Studios, 2016 (group show)
- Watch This Space, Wandsworth Fringe, Southside Shopping Centre 2016
- Voltaire Open, Studio Voltaire, 2016 (group show)
- Watch This Space, Wandsworth Fringe, Southside Shopping Centre 2015
Film
Robin’s a talented artist we support in London. He was involved in an exciting project with @THEActionSpace and we were there to film it! pic.twitter.com/FRHvhogZa8
— Brandon Trust (@BrandonTrust) July 22, 2017