WORK SHOP ABOUT SWAP EDITIONS OBJECT | MULTIPLE
> CASTAWAYS
Following a short residency in the project space, Robin’s exhibition titled ‘Castaways’ presents several collections of works displayed together in Limbo - a gallery space and artist studios set within an electricity substation located in the coastal town of Margate.
In bringing together these works for the first time, remnants of now functionless hardware are displayed and elevated as treasures surrounding facsimiles of perished marine creatures and petrified zoomorphic specimens. When encountered together these synthetic and organic artefacts compose a holistic composition of land and sea, drawing on the notion of castaway objects and the passing of time.
Following a short residency in the project space, Robin’s exhibition titled ‘Castaways’ presents several collections of works displayed together in Limbo - a gallery space and artist studios set within an electricity substation located in the coastal town of Margate.
In bringing together these works for the first time, remnants of now functionless hardware are displayed and elevated as treasures surrounding facsimiles of perished marine creatures and petrified zoomorphic specimens. When encountered together these synthetic and organic artefacts compose a holistic composition of land and sea, drawing on the notion of castaway objects and the passing of time.
Echoing the hum of the substation equipment sitting outside the front, on entering the building the first set of works continue the aesthetics of an obsolete technological landscape. Titled ‘Castles In The Sky’ are a horizon line of discarded computer heatsinks individually presented on cast wall mounted corbels. Each architectural monument punctuates a far away distance, but when viewed up-close they appear as micro and precious. These gem like artefacts were once housed inside computers, specifically engineered to protect them from overheating and presented here out of context as miniature readymade sculptures they become beacons of a shiny technological mirage. Here a selection is Installed from a growing collection of over 50+ individual pieces making up this work.
As a nod to the romanticism of fossil hunting, colliding with every family‘s seaside nightmare, the exhibition centres around a sculptural installation titled ‘Jelly Moulds’ a series of large Jellyfish discovered washed ashore at low tide. In place of a sandcastle bucket and spade as a child, and equipped like a palaeontologist with sacks of Plaster of Paris Robin moulded the perished forms into future fossils directly on the beach. Jellyfish are intriguing - prehistoric watery ghosts. They are characterised as majestic creatures from the deep in popular culture and often mythologised in folklore. They suddenly land like aliens stranded at low tide, where their remains simply evaporate in the sun or disappear with each passing cycle of the moon. When alive they appear so elegant, weightlessly propelling themselves through the water - but it’s the water that determines their fate. When stranded on land their gelatinous forms become ambiguous and uncanny, yet being soft-bodied and almost entirely water they are the perfect viscous solidity to cast in permanent form. These transient creatures are installed as relief sculptures part ‘beach fresh’ specimens part ‘display ready’ objects.
On a single ledge at the far side of the space is a collection of glass vessels containing the preserved remains of a sack of potatoes titled ‘Petrified Spuds’. The tubers were left undisturbed on a windowsill for several years and with only sunlight as nutrients the shop bought potatoes sprouted and mutated until they finally ran out of energy. They now exist perpetuated as fragile sculptural forms that grew themselves.
As a nod to the romanticism of fossil hunting, colliding with every family‘s seaside nightmare, the exhibition centres around a sculptural installation titled ‘Jelly Moulds’ a series of large Jellyfish discovered washed ashore at low tide. In place of a sandcastle bucket and spade as a child, and equipped like a palaeontologist with sacks of Plaster of Paris Robin moulded the perished forms into future fossils directly on the beach. Jellyfish are intriguing - prehistoric watery ghosts. They are characterised as majestic creatures from the deep in popular culture and often mythologised in folklore. They suddenly land like aliens stranded at low tide, where their remains simply evaporate in the sun or disappear with each passing cycle of the moon. When alive they appear so elegant, weightlessly propelling themselves through the water - but it’s the water that determines their fate. When stranded on land their gelatinous forms become ambiguous and uncanny, yet being soft-bodied and almost entirely water they are the perfect viscous solidity to cast in permanent form. These transient creatures are installed as relief sculptures part ‘beach fresh’ specimens part ‘display ready’ objects.
On a single ledge at the far side of the space is a collection of glass vessels containing the preserved remains of a sack of potatoes titled ‘Petrified Spuds’. The tubers were left undisturbed on a windowsill for several years and with only sunlight as nutrients the shop bought potatoes sprouted and mutated until they finally ran out of energy. They now exist perpetuated as fragile sculptural forms that grew themselves.
