Thursday, May 23, 2013

Robert Clinch's artwork

Last night I had the pleasure of chatting with artist Robert Clinch, who like me is doing a fellowship at the State Library of Victoria. Robert's beautifully detailed paintings and lithographs are, to quote from his website, "expressions of a seemingly realistic, but fictional world. These timeless images draw their sense of place and tactility from plein-air observation, yet have a singular, poetic intensity that moves us far beyond the simple rendering of real locations."

The older neighbourhoods of Melbourne are sources of inspiration for these works, and consequently ghost signs pop up in them. This one has the whimsical title of Salad Sandwich:


This painting is entitled Sign of the Times:


During our discussion, Robert talked about "ghosts", the impressions made on walls by the outlines of buildings that have since been knocked down, as seen in this work entitled Memory:



 Here's a painting that makes fine use of the former brewery tower off Wellington Street, Collingwood - a location I used to explore years ago, and from which I snaffled a very fine 1936 blueprint of a light fitting that now sits on my wall. It's called Fanfare for the Common Man:



 A major retrospective of Robert's work is about to get underway in the Art Gallery of Ballarat from Saturday July 13th to Sunday September 8th.

More details (and examples of his work) can be found online here:  http://www.robertclinch.com/index.htm

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