Looking at Rob's paintings we see that what has attracted and preoccupied him is his very particular vision of the wilderness. There are no fences, no towns, no cities, no bustling humanity, no freeways or grain silos or distant factories in Rob's paintings, no backyards or traffic. And there are no nudes and very few portraits or interiors. Rob Maclaurin has looked away from us and our termite activities to gaze on a world on which we appear to have left little record of ourselves.
Looking at Rob's beautiful canvasses I sometimes feel it is almost as if he has set out to leave a loving and precious record of our haunted, timeless, silent landscapes, suspecting and fearing that for a future generation they may be no more than faint cultural memories.
Realism, in art - Rob's paintings of landscape are realist in their conception - realism, if you'll allow me to say so, is the deepest mask of all, for it seems to set aside our need to understand what it is we are seeing and the result is often that we fail to look properly at what we see. Rob's vision is unique and powerfully innovative if we make the effort to bypass the seeming familiarity of his images.
For there is more to them than at first meets our eye. These are paintings to live with for a lifetime. They go on revealing themselves and their depths and idiosyncracies for decades and while they grow more familiar, they will never appear quite the same each subsequent encounter. It is a mark of great art that it stays in the mind long after it has been looked at.
Alex Miller
There will be a catalogue to accompany this exhibition. If you would like to order a copy please contact Brian Porter at the gallery: bporter@osbornesamuel.com |
