Robin Mason

Robin Mason grew up in Porthcawl South Wales. He completed the Foundation Course at Cardiff College of Art going on to study Fine Art in Wolverhampton winning the Northern Young Contemporaries. Following his MA in Painting at The Royal College of Art he established a studio in London. He has continued to exhibit nationally and internationally and his work can be found in public, significant private and corporate collections including those of Unilever and the Government Art Collection. He is currently Head of Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School.

 

“Why are The Roses So Pale” was the title of Robin Mason’s most recent one person show which explored a number of 'themes' that have remained central to his practice for a period of over twenty years. At the heart of these lies an obsession with a sense of place and a number of key works from art’s dark history. Stylistically Mason’s work has been described as Carroll Dunham meets Magritte. His returning reflections on a childhood journey across Germany, Böcklin’s ‘Isle of the Dead’, and Grünewald’s ‘Isenheim Alterpiece’ are formed through imagery that references funfairs, crucifixions and museums.

 

His work, which constantly references the legacy of the traditions of art, is Metamodernist in its engagement and quotations from the history of painting, contemporary art & design, post modernism and popular cultures vast reservoir of freely available imagery. ‘Why Are The Roses So Pale”, a reference to the work of 19th Century Poet Heinrich Heine, gives a clue to Mason’s relationship with landscape, nostalgia and literature. Inscribed onto one of his sculptural collaborative objects is the Welsh word ‘Hiraeth’, which refers to a deep longing and nostalgia for the landscape of Wales, this yearning and longing fuels Mason’s work. Hiraeth is ever present as he paints the things he’s seen, experienced and thought about into a landscape that is constantly the beach at home. He lives between London and Porthcawl, South Wales.