Robbie Rowlands
Hello my Name is
Robbie Rowlands
I was born in
Melbourne Australia
I currently live in
Melbourne Australia
It all started when
I felt the need to rediscover my surroundings. To consider that maybe what I’m seeing and hearing is not the full story and that I need to start questioning, refining, defining. Searching for patterns, movement and energy in base materials that would allow me to begin a journey. To discover/uncover. To trigger a new way of feeling and thinking or maybe uncover a path that I had forgotten.
My work is about
challenging a preconceived order. I suppose questioning what we take for granted. Considering that maybe there is an emotive energy stored in the objects and structures we surround ourselves with and that this energy could be an insight into hidden history, or possibilities, or new ways of seeing. It is so much about continually challenging my process. Taking everything to the edge. To a point where I feel vulnerable, unsure, lost. Sometimes I don’t know if I have hit on something for weeks. It can be such a horrible process where everything disintegrates and I find myself piecing it all back together. It’s tied up in trusting myself. I know it will all come good, but I always still have to drag myself through this rough patch. I suppose the new worry is if the rough patch doesn’t happen will the work be any good.
My ideal work environment is
growing and changing all the time. The studio is great with certain objects but primarily the works that I’m really excited about are coming from a diverse selection of environments. I have just recently come out of a show in a RMIT gallery in Melbourne where I cut into their display wall and reconstructed their main entrance doors. Now I’m about to enter an abandoned church in Dandenong to create a new site work so really there are infinite possibilities opening up in the landscape.
I spend my days/nights
worrying about how to run my precarious lifestyle whilst maintaining a family with 3 kids. It has its ups and downs but I am pretty lucky to be doing what I do whilst having so much. I do spend a lot of my time thinking and planning works that primarily happen in a very short space of time.
I'm under the influence of
a load of different exciting writings and artistic work. I really love the work of NY artist Thomas Doyle. His models of domestic scapes are so emotive and incredibly vulnerable. The work really hits you hard to the core and I suppose really does undermine your sense of security. Also the book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski sits by my side and I am always opening it up to help shake up my foundations. Rachel Whiteread is still a very big influence on my work especially her work ‘House’. This is all very American bias but I suppose I do a lot of looking out to look in. I have a close artist friend Susan Jacobs who is constantly inspiring me with her works that break through so many boundaries with the way we conceive art and its process.
My favorite tool of the trade
would have to be my angle grinder and also my circular saw and oh my jigsaw. With those three tools I seem to be able to tackle most situations.
If you were to go through my trash you might find
well, if we are talking studio wise not much tends to make it to the bin apart from some used cutting disks. It is interesting working on building sites that are scheduled for demolition like the church I’m about to do. Really at this stage the site is deemed one pile of rubbish to be cleared away. I’m hoping there is some sort of recycle situation with it but I wouldn’t count on it. So I suppose if you were looking through my trash you might find an old church or a house.
The one item to be buried with me is
kind of a hard question to answer but I suppose ‘you can’t take it with you’ is an appropriate answer. It is quite amazing all the bits that we accumulate in life that then end up abandoned once we are gone. I frequent this place called the tip shop which is a recycle center for things that are saved from landfill. It is kind of amazing what ends up there. I’m sure a lot of things are from deceased estates.
Something I value that others might discard is
probably the 100 year old church that I’m about to work with. Sort of wish I could just tow it into my back yard. I suppose I value those moments in which you just stop and watch the world in operation. The momentum of life tends to do away with the ability to stop and consider what’s in front of us.
My last words
are probably make the most with what you have.
