ROBIN CLARE

"My subject matter focuses on discarded items, they make an interesting cultural mirror. Along with the discarded I have started exploring language, an exploration that began when I was thinking about how a title could transform the meaning of a work. I have always been fascinated with language and it's evolution. So the natural conclusion was to blend them with my painting. Choosing which phrases to use has been a really interesting process, for example some of my favourite phrases that I grew up with in Jamaica would leave most people outside the island completely stumped. So to begin with I have tried to use phrases that have filtered down through pop culture. My very first being "We could have been anything that we wanted to be" a line from one of the songs in Bugsy Malone, it seemed to fit perfectly with what my discarded appliances were singing about (in my head).

Along with line and text I employ pattern and blocks of clashing colour. One explanation for this is that it's strongly linked to my childhood in the Caribbean. My mother was a clothing manufacturer and I can remember going on trips to buy fabric, entering into the world of Pablos, an enormous warehouse in Montego Bay, full of reams of fabric, and the visual assault of colour, pattern and texture that ensued. I create my patterns using stencilling techniques with my designs taking inspiration from 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s surface design. I enjoy the variations that are left by the paint that has leaked through my stencil as I repeat my image, for me this imperfection makes an important statement about the work and the process of creating it.

The end products are a combination of some of my favourite things, colour, pattern, line drawing, discarded appliances and phrases. I feel they have a very pop art feel to them and in this series I can definitely see more of the influences of some of my favourite artist, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Blake, Joe Tilson, Jeff Koons, and Kenny Scharf."(ROBIN CLARE)

ROBIN CLARE
EDUCATION
2001 – 2004 BA(Hons) Painting, University of the Arts London, UK

AWARDS AND HONOURS
2006 Purchase prize, University of Leicester, UK
2002 British Columbia Arts Council Junior Award

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