Sutton Gallery is pleased to present Neologisms, an exhibition of new sculptural works by Peter Robinson. Robinson is one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, with a practice that includes sculpture, drawing, painting and printmaking. While his earlier works dealt with overtly political issues, mainly race relations, more recently Robinson has honed in on his sculptural training, focusing on materiality, form and space. In 2008 he produced the largest sculpture ever exhibited in a New Zealand art gallery filling seven galleries of the New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

Following hot on the heels of his recent project Recreation Centre at the Pompidou Peter Robinson presents Neologisms an exhibition of black and yellow cut felt sculptures that suggest letterforms from an evolving language. Words and language have been a consistent theme throughout Robinson’s career made manifest through text based works, binary prints and mnemonic structures. Returning to language Neologisms appears as a kind of typology of an unknown code or alphabet. Some forms remain abstract while others are highly associative with wide ranging references to prehistory, art history, mathematics and science. On confronting the work the viewer becomes involved in decoding a complex network of ciphers and references that is highly poetic but opaque and potentially begins to attribute his or her own syntax and meaning to the work. Robinson has exhibited extensively internationally and locally.