WILLIAM ROBINSON

Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, 1998
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above

William Robinson, Paintings, Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney, 27 March - 29 April 1998, cat. 15
William Robinson: The Revelation of Landscape, National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery and Sydney Festival, 11 January - 2 March 2003; Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 1 April - 18 May 2003; University of South Australia Art Museum, 27 February - 3 May 2004 

The Australian landscape, with its clear bright light and sometimes flat, desolate spaces, has always presented a challenge for artists to interpret creatively. John Olsen, for example, often removed the horizon line by approaching the landscape from the air. In contrast, William Robinson chose to look at the rainforest: from the aspect of the lush tangled undergrowth and vegetation, upwards through the forest canopy to a cloud-filled, rotating sky.   

Robinson’s tropical landscapes combine the historical viewpoint of physical exploration and documentation with a deep interest in and concern for nature. His vision of the rapidly changing forest landscape lives and breathes in this canvas. As he has explained, ‘My work relies a great deal on the kind of knowledge that is achieved through living in the area. It is made up of a complexity of downward and upward thrusts within the work as well as a feeling for atmosphere and time of day’. ¹