Robert Wilson Studio 9
Australian artist, Robert Wilson, has dedicated his life to painting. Robert has lived in the village of Bundeena for the past twenty-five years and finds it a wonderful contrast to his many visits to the outback where his artistic heart lies.
Forty years of travelling and painting within Australia has allowed him to paint the diversity of subject matter on this vast continent with clarity, vision and imagination.
Robert’s latest series of large contemp- orary landscapes has established him as one of Australia’s most visionary artists.
Years spent analysing the colours and form of the landscape in a traditional style have endowed him with the ability to understand what is happening beneath the pictorial surface of the land. To merely copy the landscape as it first appears would be to ignore the secrets hidden beneath its surface. The fragility and susceptibility of the earth to man’s cease- less tampering is evident in this new work.
In June of 2005, Robert chartered a small aircraft to make a low-level flying trip to the outback. His destination was Lake Eyre and the Painted Desert regions. He visited isolated areas camping out under the wing. His return flight was via the Flinders ranges, Broken Hill and Lake Mungo. An exhibition of works resulting from this trip will be held in 2006.
The Painted Desert, the area that has most recently attracted the artist, is known as breakaway country. The vast grey- green desert plain gives way to broken outcrops of pure white chalk that stand like the ruins of forsaken castles. These weather-worn walls are streaked with red ironstone and patches of ochre-coloured clay. When the red afternoon sun catches the facets of this broken landscape the effect is that of a beautiful rainbow against the warm grey evening sky.
Robert’s new works tell the story of this outback landscape and the paintings transport the viewer to a place of peace and tranquillity that can only be found in the bush.
Robert has been painting professionally since 1970 and in that time has held over forty one-man exhibitions throughout Australia. He has been guest-artist five times at the Ayers Rock, Yulara Resort and spent some time as Art Director on the cruise ship Norwegian Star.
He taught for over twenty years at the Mitchell School of Creative arts, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and teaches each year at the Grafton Artsfest.
Robert is a Fellow and Vice-president of the Royal Art Society.
