Overview
Carol Robertson has been making circle paintings for twenty five years. Over this period she has used a wide variety of geometric formations yet she consistently returns to the circle. For her the circle is an archetypal anchor, both formally and emotionally.
Carol Robertson has been making circle paintings for twenty five years. Over this period she has used a wide variety of geometric formations yet she consistently returns to the circle. For her the circle is an archetypal anchor, both formally and emotionally. Circular Stories brings together a powerful new series of paintings and as the title of the show suggests, all are thematic variations of circular motifs. In spite of her non-representational roots her paintings are never disconnected from the real world. She responds to a changing, ephemeral world, contrasting the ideal geometry of the circle, with atmospheric colour fields, symbolic of the flux of nature.
"The circle is the most archetypal of all the forms I use: it has a universal resonance, so frequently found in art, architecture and ritual: an evocation of the universe and the heavens: the journey inwards, or outward, to or from the centre: a symbol of wholeness, completion and infinity: the unbroken line with no beginning or end: the eternal cycle."
Much of Robertson's inspiration forCircular Storiescomes from a series of residencies in France. Over several years, together with her partner, the artist Trevor Sutton, she has been invited to work in a studio in the Gaillac region of the Midi Pyrenees."The studio is in a very beautiful old building, high up in the hills, surrounded by fields and vineyards. The sun rises on one side of the hill and sets on the other. Days spent working here become a meditation upon nature's seasonal patterns and the changing quality of light."After making many small paintings in this location she has produced several large paintings back in her London studio that form a major part of this exhibition.
Not all of her recent work references her French influences. In February 2014 Robertson made a trip to Central America. She was primarily looking at Maya archaeological sites in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. Because of her interest in circles she also examined many exquisitely carved and painted Mayan calendars. These are complicated circular 'counts' of solar, lunar, stellar and mythological observations that the Mayas became expert in refining from versions of calendars dating back to pre- Columbian Mesoamerica, c.2000 BC to AD 250. Versions of these calendars are still in use today in the Guatemalan highlands and some regions of southern Mexico. Since her return Robertson has made a series of prints and paintings using circular motifs, marking the significant impact of this Central American visit.
Colour is Robertson's key to unlocking her meditations. After preparing luminous unstructured colour fields of liquefied oil paint, she draws and then divides over-painted circles into narrow bands of alternating colours, creating a rotating dynamic that animates the geometry. Each painting contains a complete history of colour, an abstract animation of memory and sensory experience.
Carol Robertson has been making circle paintings for twenty five years. Over this period she has used a wide variety of geometric formations yet she consistently returns to the circle. For her the circle is an archetypal anchor, both formally and emotionally.
