William Robinson: Nature imagined: 29 June 2018 to 16 June 2019

The visual art object often fails to command our attention for more than a few seconds, maybe minutes, as we cross its path. However, if a special connection is made, we can carry that experience with us for life, reconnecting with it through our mind’s eye. This is one of the most powerful experiences we can have with an artwork and we never know when it will happen or which inherent qualities an object must possess in order to instil this effect on us for years to come. It could be said that William Robinson is an exponent of the ‘slow art’ movement. He’s often referred to as a late bloomer— his career as an artist has been slow, steady, but most importantly, consistent. He held his first solo exhibition in 1967 at the age of 31, gained significant commercial success during the early 1980s exhibiting with the Ray Hughes Gallery in Brisbane, and was included in Australian Perspecta 1983 and the Biennale of Sydney 1986; but it was after winning two of Australia’s most prestigious art prizes—the Archibald and the Wynne—that his career flourished and he gave up his teaching position to paint full-time in 1989. Since then, he has produced some of the most memorable paintings of his generation, and, with the fullness of time, some of the nation’s most significant artworks. Nature imagined is the eleventh exhibition to be held at the William Robinson Gallery since it opened in 2009. In this show, we revisit Robinson’s most popular subject—the landscape, or more accurately, his output from 1985 to the early 2000s. This period includes the ‘Beechmont’ works produced when Robinson moved with his family to a 200-acre property in the Gold Coast Hinterland, and then from 1994 when he relocated his studio to Springbrook, which lies across the Numinbah Valley from Beechmont. Robinson was living on the coast at this time, but would make visits to the Springbrook studio until 2005. Undoubtedly, the creation of Robinson’s art originates from a lifetime of intense observation and joy in the natural world; yet, the work has always been produced in the studio, founded on Robinson’s memories, feelings and ideas impelled by the contemplation of the beauty of nature and the cosmos. Comprising works in all the artist’s mediums—painting, print, watercolour, pastel, pencil and ceramic—Nature imagined offers a new understanding of Robinson’s sophisticated vision of his lived environment, and how, while providing source material, the landscape is never a mere representation but an emblem of Robinson’s world view. Within our contemporary world, an artist’s temperament is played out on gallery walls and in studios across the globe. In making their art public, artists are offering a little piece of themselves— it’s an accepted premise that artworks are the result of the creativity of an individual. But the term ‘landscape’ too often brings with it a perception of an artist going out into nature to capture its inherent beauty; a product of a set of strict rules and conventions; or being tied to a physical site or place. However, ideas of this ‘natural vision’—that an artwork presents a realistic representation of a place—are essentially contradictory, as any act of forming a visual experience, whether on a two-dimensional surface or within a three-dimensional space, is an act of artifice. Every aspect—from medium, scale and size to what to include or exclude—is the result of the artist making choices informed by reality or by their imagination, conscious or unconscious. Of course, we must also acknowledge that the very idea of nature is historical, generated within a particular culture and time. William Robinson has pursued ‘landscape’ painting at a time when it has been seen as deeply conservative, hidebound, the antithesis to conceptually and politically driven practice dominating the programs of major institutions, biennales and triennials around the world. In many respects, Robinson is of another time and place—as an artist influenced by early 20th century modernists and as an artist working in Queensland, a place that has only recently begun to emerge as an art centre in its own right. As with his paintings, Robinson is not overly concerned with looking outwards to what is happening around him—he is more concerned with looking inwards. Robinson is rightfully attributed as one of the most original artists of his generation, altering the way we perceive the Australian landscape through his unique perspective. We cannot visit our country’s vertiginous hinterland or lush rainforests and not imagine one of Robinson’s artworks in our experience of that environment. This is undoubtedly a powerful quality of his work and it impacts on our very way of seeing; however, Nature imagined seeks to reclaim some of the visionary and dreamlike qualities of Robinson’s ‘landscape’ works. In doing so, it asks viewers to rethink their relationship to nature and the art object. It reminds us to stop, look and experience both the real and imagined worlds that this extraordinary Australian artist has offered for our meditation and appreciation. As Robinson notes, “My landscapes are not a reflection of the natural world but a search for what lies beyond. My pictures require quiet contemplation where the observer can bring something of themselves to allow the work to completely resolve.”2

Vanessa Van Ooyen Senior Curator William Robinson Gallery