Iain Robertson
New Paintings
From 5 March 2001 NOW EXTENDED TO APRIL
LONDON Main Gallery

            
  
            


Iain Robertson's joyful pictures are highly coloured and strongly textured. They result from random improvisations of colour, gesture and form, upon which he imposes order and harmony, "until my participation is no longer needed", he says, "(and) the work takes on a life of its own."  In this way the work retains an immediacy which is refreshing and exciting. In a way it is the pictorial equivalent of free form music, moving wherever the spirit takes it. A new development is his willingness to leave areas of the primed canvas exposed, which contrasts the very physical impasto. The whiteness gives every painting a wonderful luminosity.

The inherent romanticism/expressionism is directly in line with other  great Scottish abstractionists - William Johnstone, William Gear and Alan Davie - while also reflecting the broader Northern European Romantic Tradition. He has been very successful in Denmark, Norway and Germany by being linked to the COBRA group, with whom he is regarded as having a natural affinity.

This is Robertson's second exhibition with ART FIRST. Born in Cyprus in 1955 he was educated in edinburgh. He graduated from Exeter College of Art and Design in 1982 and was the first Scottish recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 1988. He now lives in St. Ives.