Peter Robinson is one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, with a practice that includes sculpture, drawing, painting and printmaking. Continually shifting his approach to his use of materials and techniques, as well as the content he addresses, his oeuvre is unified by an anti-art aesthetic. Robinson’s practice has gradually shifted from the political rhetoric of his early work by becoming increasingly focused on materiality, form and space. Recent large scale installations and sculptural pieces, cut from polystyrene, fill the space with a sense of awe and wonder.

For Essential Security, 2011 Robinson manipulates and distorts forms commonly associated with exhibitions, conventions and museums. Over the past two years, he has explored objects used to protect art, and through creative placement, subtle distortion and witty repetition, he reinvigorates these objects granting them new status as the artwork itself.

During his time in Europe in late 2009, Robinson became fascinated by museums’ excessive use of barriers. He documented this absurd overuse of chains, signs and plinths, locating spaces where museums would accumulate an abundance of these, which were often in locations where there were no artworks needing to be secured.

For recent installations at The Centre for Drawing in London and later at the Hong Kong International Art Fair, Robinson presented signage, stanchions, morphed posts and peculiarly altered plinths all created in crisp white polystyrene. Presented on mass and spilling out across the space, these works no longer fulfilled their everyday purpose to restrict the viewer, enforce a border and overtly secure a space. Here, these beautifully crafted objects were fragile and cautiously inviting. Extending this series, earlier this year Robinson’s installation Cache for the Christchurch Art Gallery, marked a pivotal move in his practice with the introduction
of steel. Blocks, columns and cases of polystyrene were interspersed with black metal chains, rails and stanchions.