Alan Robb: Child's Play

For Alan Robb’s upcoming exhibition at Dundee’s McManus art gallery, there is a striking painting that accompanies near enough all online and magazine listings. A mythical figure suited in his majestic finery spears a dragon upon a valiant steed as a mysterious figure – known in Afro Brazilian mythology as Ze – gazes down in a solemn fashion at a shower of broken twigs at his feet.

It is a piece that represents Robb’s recent body of work beautifully, but it also leads to the question of which painting the artist himself would select to promote his aptly named A Painted World show in The Skinny. “Ze, St Jorge and his Dragon seems to be on everything but maybe you should go for Pomba Gira Queen of the 7 Crossroads and Ze,” he suggests. “…For drama.”

Drama feels like the key word in describing Robb’s arresting concentration on Afro Brazilian folklore. There is a glorious theatricality in both of the aforementioned pieces: they feel like differing snapshots of the same cosmic universe where lavish backgrounds, darkened by shadows, provide the ideal setting for the myths to come alive. 

As Robb explains, the work is a response to his travels to Brazil and his research at the Museu do Folclore Edison Carneiro in Rio and at a library in Salvador: “If you visit South America or the Caribbean you are aware of Africa and the slave trade and its effect on the culture. This includes religion and in Afro Brasilian folklore you can explore an amazing fusion of African Deities with Christian Saints.”

Travel has also influenced his latest work, which marks a return to working practices of the past. A piece entitled Brother David’s Last Mission sees Robb take influence from a trip to India and combine it with a collage style, most prevalent in his work from the 70s and 80s.

A Painted World will feature Robb’s collection from 1974-2012, twenty years of which was spent as the Head of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone. Throughout his archive of work is a balance of both still life composition and imaginative subject and Robb sees his work as being a fusion of the two: “It is based on objective material and includes invention... metaphysical in a painted language which has an objective viewpoint. For example, directional light source, illusionistic form and space. It is why painting is unique as an art.”

While this seems unsurprising when taking his interest in the worlds of spirituality and folklore into consideration, what may be more unexpected is an autobiographical tone present in some of his work.

In some ways Robb’s work also charts another journey through his very own museum of childhood. Some pieces feel lavished in fond recollection and reminisce of childhood past and present: “In a way, my painting has always been playful. When my kids were small I used their toys and books as reference sometimes with little visual jokes.”

Toy fans, big and small, will be delighted with the use of Meccano instructions he built with his kids and the very precise details of a specific Action Man that crops up in his work: “I also respond to the aesthetic of some toys. I met sculptors in LA who worked for Mettoy, the company who made the first injection moulded Action Man.”

It is a theme that will resonate with generations old and new. In sweet sentiment he adds: “And now I have three grandchildren and we watch Toy Story 1, 2 and 3 together.”