Peter Robinson
APT9
Born 1966 Hakatere, Ashburton, Aotearoa New Zealand
Lives and works in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Peter Robinson initially trained in sculpture but is also known for his installation, drawings and paintings. He began referencing Māori cultural concepts and forms during the 1990s in response to bicultural politics in New Zealand. Robinson’s practice has evolved over time as he engages with his materials, and his creations are, in part, driven by the form and function of his chosen media. He is also interested in how art can occupy and test the gallery space. His works range from monumental installations that exploit the material and sensory qualities of polystyrene, to site-specific interventions in felt, Perspex and wood. His recent practice explores more modest and subtle forms made with everyday materials, such as wood, wire, paper, metal, nails and magnets. Playfully engaging with the visual and physical language of materials, Robinson draws on histories of modern and contemporary art to question and critique formal and conceptual art-making.
Peter Robinson / Aotearoa New Zealand b.1966 / This place displaced (detail) 2018 installed at GOMA for APT9, 2018 / Mixed media / © The artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne / Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA
Peter Robinson works with non-figurative forms as if they create their own language. Using abstraction, he leaves possibilities for meaning and communication open in order to engage his audience in imaginative play. He develops vocabularies that he can rearrange at will, and which address aspects of contemporary culture, including bicultural politics in Aotearoa New Zealand and recent histories of contemporary art. Lately, he has been exploring how everyday materials — aluminium, wire, paper, nails, felt and magnets — attract new meanings when placed in different situations.
Robinson has stated: ‘I’m interested in thinking about the problems and benefits of co-existence . . . which relates strongly to my current renewed interest in postcolonial thought and processes of decolonising’. Exploring the physical and visual qualities of materials, Robinson is also concerned with the interactions between objects and the spaces they inhabit. This place displaced 2018 is a subtle installation that resonates with histories of minimal and conceptual art. In this work, Robinson introduces ‘foreign’ objects, sourced from another country, into the art institution with its historical roots in Europe. Considered metaphorically, the installation is an exploration of notions of visibility and invisibility, indigeneity and belonging — or not.
