From the interior world of work to the greater world beyond, Robin Stewart’s paintings create movement, while centring around a still figure.
These figures forge new paths from their daily life; they come home late, pick up children from school, are caught in the lights or wander past an evening shop. Musicians wait for an exam or leave a taxing audition. Often solitary and absorbed, Stewart’s people move silently through the city.
In his latest body of work, Stewart’s re-invention of the human figure continues in sometimes unexpected ways.
Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias, and the artist’s journey to Egypt inspired new directions in his work. He travelled down the Nile and into the desert; wandered through temples and descended into the tombs of an ancient civilisation.
These experiences and the poem drew his work into the myths, deities and iconography of an ancient world. In the desert, he found Shelley’s “trunkless legs of stone”, and:
“Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things…”
Stewart’s painting was pushed into newer spaces, spawning drawings and changes in technique and outlook. This led him to small sculptures in laser-cut steel, with Russian Constructivism connecting all the parts.
Between the late-night windows, music, and Egypt, Stewart’s figurative, geometric work ultimately expands his moving figures into unfamiliar places.
Image above: Robin Stewart Evening with dreams of things past 2021 oil on linen 154 x 154 cm Congratulations to …
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