SHIFT

SHIFT is an exhibition of sculpture that display Lewis Robinsons’ interest in the world of matter and its transmutation, the change from one state to another. They represent the mental and physical processes of a sculptor who enjoys the physical piecing together of fragments and remnants. His sculptures embrace unpolished surfaces and makeshift construction. He uses what he describes as ‘allotment technology’ to reinvent existing objects sometimes into absurd and pointless reconstructions echoing a kind of ‘shabby minimalism’. The process is one of playful improvisation exploring the paradoxical impulse of destruction and creation using found domestic objects. This intervention is a circular relationship between the parts and the whole, the original object and the resulting image. His drawn works explore and ponder similar ideas through a reductive drawing process. There has been a growing curiosity and awareness of the way matter is made up and cannot be destroyed, only changed. The initial constraint was, only the material that made up the original object could be used to make the sculpture. This new body of work has emerged since 2010.These first works compressed the original objects into blocks, removing space and hinting at their origins. In other works an unraveling, expanding process took place. In either case the objects he makes, reflect on their original appearance and re-present themselves as robust and sometimes fragile structures offering new meanings, chains of signification and reflections on life. Coupled with this is a continuing fascination for rethinking the sculptural object as a silent and eloquent expression of the domestic. We live in a decade where the domestic appears transient and elusive. Paradoxically, home suggests familiarity, comfort and security and yet it can be a theatre for the absurd, strange and bizarre. Is it a state of mind or a place? These works reflect that uncertainty but also point to the fact that things can be rebuilt. We live in a culture where DIY is cool and the DIY stores reign like cathedrals to the flat-pack and a proliferation of makeover TV shows invade our living space. The home and its furnishings are substituting our identities which can be discarded, disguised and remade. “Home is no longer a dwelling but the untold story of a life being lived “John Berger