Brad Robson

Pop culture and the human psyche are central themes in Robson’s work. His signature style consists of an intense mixture of street, pop, and abstract art and his strokes are fast, free and capture a sense of restless urgency. His creative process experiments with the finished and the unfinished, creation and de-construction. As it appears as though a piece is close to completion, the painterly face on the canvas is artistically assaulted as the final act in the studio performance. Erasing squeegee strokes disfigure his chosen icon and in doing so, Robson transforms them into something new, something more. It is an instinctive act that is powerful, irreversible and a once only event.

For Robson, art should be spontaneous and part of an unrestrictive process; where the artwork takes over and defines for itself the beginning and the end. His portraits blur the lines between figuration and abstraction. Faces lose their recognisable identities and become abstracted; transmitting a universal message with which the viewer can identify. By damaging immortal, ‘unchanging pop-exteriors’, Robson gives a glimpse of what has been lost. He believes his faces are snapshots evoking a moment in time, “a thought on what it means to be present”. To every pop-culture icon he paints, he gives back an essence of truth and immediacy that have been long since been lost. He believes his work changes the unchangeable, and makes it immediate, bringing it so close that we can almost reach out and touch it. As a result, Robson’s paintings seem to breathe and have a magical aura about them