Robin Sewell

As a child I was fascinated by a phenomenon introduced to me by my brother. I held a large key dangling on a string and tried to hold it very still whilst thinking of a clockwise motion. Slowly it would begin to rotate in a clockwise circle however much you tried to hold the string still. Other thoughts for the motion, anti-clockwise, forward and backwards, side to side and a static key, all worked in the same fashion. There remains an echo of this childhood engagement within my studio practice as I bring about unforeseen imagery born out of prevalent day-to-day concerns.
A painting can go through many technical states, sometimes many times over, throughout which there is a balanced interplay between my actions and that of the habitual nature of the materials. To allow the matter to ‘speak’ and hence maintain this equilibrium between it and myself, some mechanistic, distancing controls are employed. However, far from being a cold processing of materials this can be a passionate, turbulent collaboration, engaging the intelligence of matter to seek out cognitive insights, embedded within emotionally charged imagery. This engagement is hampered and aided by indeterminacy. With the initial shifting dry powder, I interact, waiting, watching each moment until something is realised within its form. On fixing and priming the relief surface the panel goes on to receive paint via several modes of delivery, all of which demonstrate the behavioural nature of paint, its signature. Imagery relating to some critical concern of the day has regularly emerged from this balanced interplay with materials.
Mutations are created, serendipitous chance occurrences that mimic the evolutionary process itself.