John Robinson has been a significant figure in Australian painting and printmaking for more than 30 years. During his lifetime he was an extremely prolific artist and created works across a wide range of media, from large-scale canvases, to drawings and monoprints.

Over a three-year period Robinson worked to create a new body of work specifically for this exhibition, Essential Referencing. The oilstick drawings and large-scale canvases in this exhibition demonstrate not only the energy and vigour which was critical to Robinson’s working method, but they also reiterate ideas that have been key to the artist’s practice for many years – notions of interconnectedness (between all objects and ideas) and concepts of cosmic laws and essential energy – and which are informed by a pervasive sense of spirituality.

Extract from catalogue essay by Tansy Curtin
Curator Bendigo Art Gallery
April 2009

Blue Shift 2008
oil on canvas
210 x 170cm