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Artist - Allan J. Robertson

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Currently, my principle artistic interest is in architectural structures in the landscape. I’m fascinated particularly in the traces of human activity etched on the wilderness. My recent work focuses on ‘the ruin’, in particular on piers and bridges whose usage has undergone a transformation over the passage of time.

I am interested in these structures as they offer a rich and emotive territory for exploration. These ‘ruins’ represent a frontier or a border where boundaries between civilization and nature, order and disorder, past and present blur and become indistinct. Recent works reflect notions of journeys undertaken to distant shores, embarkation, disembarkation, travel, possibilities and prospects for our forebears and ourselves.

My initial preparation consists of onsite research both of the specific structures and their surrounding areas. I’ll research historic sources both text and image, as well as utilising my own sketches and photography. I move between abstract/representational, accidental/intentional and constructive/destructive approaches to image making. Layering the colours of paint on the surface, then rubbing back, scratching into, layering again, adding bees’ wax are just some of the processes that make a piece.