Lot 33

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Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Melbourne

Sol: A Summer Survey Gallery Artists, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney, 18 December - 27 January 2013
Melbourne Art Fair, Olsen Irwin Gallery, Sydney, 4-8 August 2010

William Robinson has lived across diverse landscapes of the eastern coast of Australia, including Birkdale, Beechmont, Springbrook and Kingscliff. Across most of these locations, Robinson has been immersed within dense rainforest environments which is pivotal to his artistic practice.

"I did not paint these works as a visitor to the landscape, but as one who lived in it and experienced it every day."(1)

Robinson's landscapes are set apart from his counterparts, largely because of his unique perspective. His richly detailed paintings depict the landscape from multiple perspectives simultaneously. It is shown to us through a series of inversions, where the sky becomes the ground and the ground the sky. Aside from his belief that his landscapes would need to present a different approach to the Australian terrain, he acknowledges through this multi-point perspective that the landscape is constantly moving around you. The clouds, the leaves, and sun, are always shifting and you are within it.

"Living in the country everything moves-the seasons, the clouds, nothing is set. There are things behind you, all around you and you are in it. … You begin to realise that you are in a landscape that is really the crust of the earth. It is air and ground. We're all just spinning through space. There is something about the painting that is indefinite, not solid." (2)

William Robinson's landscapes are delicately interwoven strokes of impasto paint work, with rich colour palettes to bring to life the intricacies and deep beauty of the landscape. Every leaf is rendered with the same deliberate attention to detail as the sky or towering tree trunks. These little details are what interlace to form the complex Australian landscape that Robinson is so recognised for representing.

Across each of Robinson's homes he has always maintained the experience of being in nature. His works have the ability to transport us to and within the landscape so that we feel we are within it, its branches enveloping us and the sunlight radiating within us. Perhaps it is this transportative quality that has honoured Robinson with being the only living Australian artist to have a public gallery in his name, and why his paintings continue to captivate collectors and critics alike.

Olivia Fuller | Head of Art

(1) Klepac, L., William Robinson: Paintings 1987-2000, Sydney, The Beagle Press, 2001, p.40
(2) Hart, D., William Robinson: The Transfigured Landscape, Queensland University of Technology and Piper Press, Brisbane, 2011, p.33