Iain Robertson Artist St Ives Cornwall

Originally from Edinburgh, studying at Cumbria College of Art and Design 1978/79 and Exeter College of Art and Design 1979/82

Robertson works across Painting, Print and Digital, presenting his practice through exhibition, open studio events, projects and teaching, his MEGA JAZZY-REMIX installation in Porthmeor Studio 5 in 2018 brought together his research into chance operation, through multiple panel painting/digital projection works, Robertson explores colour and shape as the subject also asking questions about opening up and democratizing the act of making and curating the work inviting audience engagement in the process.

‘My paintings start in random application of colour and shape working with a language of developed forms archetypal symbols recalling primitivistic signs and referencing contemporary culture, musical memory, natural and manmade forms, expressing a direct approach to image making, communication and execution.

Pouring, gravity, mark making and a tension implicit through the coexistence of considered action and chance, help me to get closer to dealing with a multiplicity of information and the influence of visual and audible stimulus on the process.

The layering of image and gesture, a more translucent colour contrasted with thicker impasto, surprising and unexpected happenings are balanced with a need for structure, composition, and beauty. An immediacy and the dynamic of the purely abstract, obviating a need for finish in favour of physicality, sensation, and the pleasure of materiality’

Notable exhibitions include, Contemporary Abstract Printmaking, Artists- Rachel Clark, Ian Davenport, Christopher Le Brun RA, John McLean, Mali Morris RA, Iain Robertson, Clifford Chance Canary Wharf , London, (2017) British Abstract, 108 Fine Art, Harrogate (2015), Abstract Critical Newcomers Award (exhibiting/selector), Kings Place Gallery, London, (2012), Art Now Cornwall, TATE St Ives, (2007), PASKE, Galerie Moderne Silkeborg, Denmark, including artists Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz, Asger Jorn, Per Kirkeby, (1996-2005) NEW WORK, Galerie Moderne Silkeborg, Denmark, solo (1995), NEW WORK Talbot Rice Gallery University of Edinburgh, solo, (1992

A recipient of a number of awards including British Council, Arts Council England and Pollock Krasner Foundation, New York

Porthmeor Studios - St Ives - Cornwall