Robert has worked from his home-based studio on the Otago Peninsula in Dunedin since 1998. Originally from the UK, Robert trained at Leeds Metropolitan University (BA Fine Arts) and Camberwell College of Art and Design (Masters in Fine Art Printmaking) in London.

He moved to New Zealand in 1996, and since this time has exhibited his paintings, prints, and multi-media work regularly across the country. He has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards (2012), and the Parkin Drawing Prize (2017, 2018 and 2019).

The focus of his practice in recent years has related to communication and pathways/connectors between starting and ending points, and the need for humans to classify and categorise to understand and be comfortable in the world. He is also interested in opportunities that art provides to create a space away from the pace of modern life and the endless stream of information we are subjected to via social media and the internet.

Often his work utilises simplicity and/or humour as a framework to explore these themes and uses mid 20th century modernism as one of his influences – Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Ben Nicolson. His printmaking background continues to influence the sensibility of his painted and collage works as well as the way in which they are constructed.

His work is heavily influenced by literature (particularly poetry), and the themes and titles of his work often reference his favourite writers and artists:

“I do not think I am slowing down time, but I am demanding people’s time. In a busy world that is a big demand, but one of the reasons why art matters is its ability to stop the rush". Film maker Tacita Dean

“The contemporaneity of presence in the moment and remoteness from the world is the place of art”. Writer Karl Ōve Knausgaard