Faye Rita Robinson

FAYE RITA ROBINSON

PG Studios - Online Exhibitions

Faye Rita Robinson is a multi-disciplinary artist from Nottingham, now based in Woolwich, London, where she works from SET Studios. Her practice spans ceramics, textiles, rug-making and painting, exploring the interplay between dreamworlds, personal experience, and the collective imagination of the past - all cloaked in a medieval, often playfully grotesque, aesthetic. Reflecting on her dreams, which since her childhood have been unusually traumatic, confusing and full of symbolic significance, Faye invites creatures and objects from her sleep into daily life.

Her work seeks to bridge the gap between the past and present, taking folkloric imagery and iconography but pushing it to a contemporary conclusion, blurring the lines between the strange and familiar. Growing up with a love of fantasy, sci-fi, horror and video games, Faye was always fascinated by alternate worlds. One of her first jobs was at a comic bookshop, where she was captivated by the storytelling and accompanying illustration of Jung Ito and Jeff Lemire. It was during this time that she began to draw, reingniting a childhood passion. She spent the year delving in to Medieval and Early Renaissance art and found many overlaps with the sci-fi and fantasy that had shaped her youth, particularly works like The Book of Miracles, which explores apocalyptic visions and mythical creatures. Faye is also strongly influenced by artists like Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and William Blake, all of whom were involved in surrealist world building while tethering those environments to the real, contemporary world they experienced.

Faye has always suffered from sleep paralysis and persistent, intensely horrifying dreams. During sleep paralysis, the boundary between the dream world and the waking world can become indistinguishable; because of this Faye is drawn to genres and artists who seek to create worlds that blur reality and illusion, where certainty doesn’t exist and anything can shape. In her own practice, exploring her dreamworld, where feelings and memories manifest in abstract and symbolic forms, enables her to look at her life and past experiences through a new lens and engage with the unknown in a tangible way.

As a self-taught artist, it has been important for Faye to seek out opportunities focused on personal development and community. In 2021, she joined New Midland Group, an artist development program that held classes and talks at Primary, a gallery and studio space in Nottingham. Since then, she’s participated in School of the Damned and newplatform.art. These cohorts and alternative art schools have been integral in helping her better understand the art world, build meaningful relationships, and inspire new ways of learning and making. Her process of making is often intertwined with teaching herself at the same time, and she’s learned almost all of her technical skills through internet research, watching tutorials, and putting that knowledge into practice. Working across multiple mediums, she often starts with a sketch and, from there, decides which elements will be realised in which medium. This approach has given her the freedom to explore new techniques and materials, and ensure she’s constantly learning and experimenting.

About PG Studios

PG Studios is Palmer Gallery's online exhibitions programme principally aimed at supporting self-trained artists who did not attend traditional art school.

In today’s art ecosystem great importance is placed on formal training and art education, often to the detriment of talented creatives who simply choose not to study in a formal context or who are not in a position to take on the financial risk of a fine art degree. Studios are arguably the great leveller across all artists and an omnipresent feature in the creative process: from artists with huge warehouses subsidised by commercial galleries, to those who make work in their bedrooms, nearly every artist has a private space in which they can create.

PG Studios will highlight the work of different types of artists, putting forward a programme that alternates between those who are self-taught and those with more formal training, focusing on the artist studio as a sacred space of creation that runs like a golden thread through the experience of all artists.

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Faye Rita Robinson: PG Studios - Online Exhibition

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