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Euan McArthur, March 1999
The artist carries his ‘outdoor kit’ easel, sun brolly and materials – ‘his luggage’. He also presents the viewer with a model of Palladio’s ‘Rotonda’, a perfect architectural concept in classical proportion. A humorous parallel is drawn with Saint Jerome, often depicted with a model church, as the father of the church. On the travelling easel in the foreground is a canvas with a representation of a geographical model/sculpture, entitled ‘Corrie’ which forms part of a group of contemporary works by the artist where models are a recurring metaphor. In making this work, the artist affirms a belief in the importance of history, the value of painting tradit8ion and the need for succeeding generations to renew that tradition. As such, this is in stark contrast to the current promotion of ‘Art Forms’ which reflect the ‘libidinous flux of media images’ (Euan McArthur). Irony lies in the post-modern situation in which everything is usable and of equal value. The painting was assembled on computer and the perspective of the image of the model/sculpture ‘Corrie’ was worked out in Photoshop. The handling and execution is in the pre-20th Century oil technique of transparent glazes over a fully resolved drawing. The artist, with a determined look, the mouth set firm, is resolute in his position, which may be as foolish as Don Quixote. Therein lies the humour and the commitment. Alan Robb, 4 April 1999
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• THE REBEL ANGELS • IN THE MIND'S EYE • TRUE KNOWLEDGE • BRASIL
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INVENTION,
ILLUSION AND REALITY: Alan Robb’s works depend on a discourse
with neo-classical and realist models (the model itself is a recurring
metaphor in his work); and on imagination which infiltrates the everyday
at all levels. Everything is imagined in the end, whatever the apparent
verisimilitude. He is conscious of the meaning of tradition and its
needfulness in the present to engender resistance to the libidinous
flex of media images. He seeks the stability offered by the resources
of painting (considered, measured complex). His resistance takes the
form of exemplary painted images. The tradition of painting to which
he belongs forms the imagination of the artist and sets the terms of
a trial. For all artists, are always on trial, always risking a venture
against tradition. There is a resolve in the artists’ vocation
which few declare and many would deny or disguise from themselves. To
enter the tradition demands what Harold Bloom called an ‘agon’,
a contest against the great dead. This is the ground of the painter’s
deepest questioning of himself and to himself, posed in the form of
an answer. It is the most direct relationship to history, the one that
puts everything to the test.
I
LIVE NOW: the painting, a studio invention, relates closely to a
previous work 'I am what I know' shown at East West in 1997. The painting
on the easel is ‘The Body of Phocion being carried out of Athens’,
National Museum of Wales, a late work by Nicholas Poussin, the founder
of classical academicism. It is painted to scale in relation to the
self-portrait.