Robyn Gardner is an Australian painter who works primarily in oils but with a strong drawing practice. She also works in pen, ink and pencil in the composition of large collaged panels. She paints landscapes, portraits, bodies and faces, bird and animal forms and the way the light falls in places or on things, real and sometimes just remembered. She has an interest in traditional oil painting practices, materials and techniques in the building up of layers and glazing methods in the paint and as a process of the paint itself and its infinite potential, not as glazing product added. By the same token, the process of abrasure and erasure is important. ‘For me, painting is primarily about ‘mood’ and tonal complexity and this is always a conceptual reference.
She paints in Italy and the UK has her studio in an old bank building in Port Fairy at the far end of The Great Ocean Road in Southwest Victoria, where the ‘sea-light’ and ragged coastline and history of shipwreck is endlessly compelling.
Artist: Robyn Gardner, 2013
