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Lot Essay
"Although the Robinsons had moved from their house at Coorparoo in 1970 because the freeway was being built, traffic was becoming a hazard, they wanted more space for the children and the animals, and the area was changing, this change of location was to influence not only Robinson's way of life but also the way he painted. He moved from the city, where he had painted images that he found indoors, to the country, where he found himself, for the first time, set down within a landscape.
It was a very busy landscape at Birkdale, with its goats, cows, 'chooks', ducks and geese. William Robinson, artist and teacher, was compelled also to learn the functions of a farmer set down in the centre of this populous landscape. At the same time he remained an observer and his Birkdale images include sardonic details redolent with potent associations" (L. Fern, William Robinson, Sydney, 1995, p.42)
"Robinson had begun to paint farmyard images in the late 1970s and as with all the new developments in his artistic style these had their sources in both life and art. In the scattered objects of the farmyard he found possibilities for new compositional scatterings on his canvas. The real life objects of the farmyard found a separate life as compositional elements. Juggling these new and different compositional forms was not a simple process and its development was not always even.
Robinson had begun this series of images simply by painting chickens. Soon his response to the rich variety of the farmyard scene caused him to begin painting mixed groups of animals. These images are full of life, colour and a kind of zany humour that accepts and makes the most of the unceasing energy and disarray of farmyard life while still recognising it as a kind of microcosm of the world." (Ibid, pp.42-43)
"Gone are the serene, still, luminous interiors. Instead they have been replaced by the cluttered turmoil of the farmyard. There are bucolic charms - animals frolic or stand and gaze, flowers survive in the bare soil and dishevelled rooster struts forward majestically. Always there are components implying that things are out of control. Sheets of corrugated iron just barely hang together to form outhouses, the precisely ordered composition belying the disorder to the scene. Although chooks, ducks, goats and cows intermingle riotously, one should not for one moment be beguiled into thinking that these disorderly parts are not equally elements of a formal structure in which Robinson creates the impression of incessant movement.
In these paintings can be seen some of the tension of Robinson's play with perspective..Its composition does not rely completely on traditional perspective - but neither is the pictorial space entirely flat. There are implications of an aerial view, as the observer can look at the farm from a number of viewpoints. (Ibid, pp.43-44)
"Robinson persistently paints life's comedy. The farm at Birkdale presented him with endless subject matter for his comic vision. Yet these images are extremely complex. They incorporate perspectival shifts, the influence of Japanese woodblocks and the techniques of scattering and crowding. Element after element jostles for space on the canvas. It is part of the townsman's humour that these elements consist of cows, goats, chooks, lean-tos, milking sheds and dunnies. He was evolving a technique for handling perspective which would lead eventually to the rhythmically articulated Canungra landscapes." (Ibid, p.45)
It was a very busy landscape at Birkdale, with its goats, cows, 'chooks', ducks and geese. William Robinson, artist and teacher, was compelled also to learn the functions of a farmer set down in the centre of this populous landscape. At the same time he remained an observer and his Birkdale images include sardonic details redolent with potent associations" (L. Fern, William Robinson, Sydney, 1995, p.42)
"Robinson had begun to paint farmyard images in the late 1970s and as with all the new developments in his artistic style these had their sources in both life and art. In the scattered objects of the farmyard he found possibilities for new compositional scatterings on his canvas. The real life objects of the farmyard found a separate life as compositional elements. Juggling these new and different compositional forms was not a simple process and its development was not always even.
Robinson had begun this series of images simply by painting chickens. Soon his response to the rich variety of the farmyard scene caused him to begin painting mixed groups of animals. These images are full of life, colour and a kind of zany humour that accepts and makes the most of the unceasing energy and disarray of farmyard life while still recognising it as a kind of microcosm of the world." (Ibid, pp.42-43)
"Gone are the serene, still, luminous interiors. Instead they have been replaced by the cluttered turmoil of the farmyard. There are bucolic charms - animals frolic or stand and gaze, flowers survive in the bare soil and dishevelled rooster struts forward majestically. Always there are components implying that things are out of control. Sheets of corrugated iron just barely hang together to form outhouses, the precisely ordered composition belying the disorder to the scene. Although chooks, ducks, goats and cows intermingle riotously, one should not for one moment be beguiled into thinking that these disorderly parts are not equally elements of a formal structure in which Robinson creates the impression of incessant movement.
In these paintings can be seen some of the tension of Robinson's play with perspective..Its composition does not rely completely on traditional perspective - but neither is the pictorial space entirely flat. There are implications of an aerial view, as the observer can look at the farm from a number of viewpoints. (Ibid, pp.43-44)
"Robinson persistently paints life's comedy. The farm at Birkdale presented him with endless subject matter for his comic vision. Yet these images are extremely complex. They incorporate perspectival shifts, the influence of Japanese woodblocks and the techniques of scattering and crowding. Element after element jostles for space on the canvas. It is part of the townsman's humour that these elements consist of cows, goats, chooks, lean-tos, milking sheds and dunnies. He was evolving a technique for handling perspective which would lead eventually to the rhythmically articulated Canungra landscapes." (Ibid, p.45)