Emil Robinson is a painter and professor- he is super accomplished — you can see his CV here.
So I asked Emil about what he’s been working on recently. Above is an image of one of his latest pieces. With his permission, here is his response:
Hi Laura! Thanks for asking. I am working on a series of still life paintings that balance different kinds of precision. The precise color of an environment that requires the mind to accommodate and summarize particular facts- with the precise drawing of an object seen in detail a certain distance from my eye. I utilize direct observation to try and calibrate color relationships at a small and large scale. At the larger scale I want my paintings to function like an Albers homage to the square painting- one simple colored place in harmony or discord with other colored places. I say place because direct observation challenges me to find the particular sense of an environment I am existing in and examining. My current studio is a small airy room with large west facing windows. The quality of light is transformational, it is strong and glowing. My room feels like the interior of a lighthouse turned on low. It is a domestic space, and the features of it are the features of common interiors. My still life arrangements are all set on a large white fireplace mantle that is a little lower than shoulder height for me. After making non-objective paintings for a number of years I take the environmental constraints of my particular studio to be one framework that gives my work consistency.
I think that my time working with abstraction has given my still life paintings surprising new life. I also recently discovered Jacques Lacan's theory of the Objet Petit A. Lacan equates the qualities of an object person or environment to a wordless geometry of desire. The gap between a constructed (linguistic) adult identity and the physical appetites of the body is the motivating force for choosing a particular object, person etc. This is a pretty common sense idea for representational painters, but it feels like permission to trust completely in my impulses for one still life object over another... These choices of object have felt increasingly inevitable to me in these paintings. I think it takes a long time to construct a mechanism inside yourself where the feelings and experiences of your life naturally translate into paintings, but in some small way I feel like it has happened for me. Even a small victory is worth celebrating...
My art journey of the last decade has been a search to understand how various kinds of traditional painting create meaning. It was never my intention to work in such diverse styles, however my questions began to necessitate that approach. The deepest love for me in painting has always been illusion and nuanced response to real space, but when I was first painting seriously that language was an inheritance not a choice. Even though my initial career was taking off- I began to see fault lines in my approach.
At this point I am choosing every facet of my work with intention, it is exhilarating. Now perhaps the career will follow!