KEZ LEIGH ROBINSON
www.studioback2back.com
Kez is an Australian contemporary artist living in New York City. She enjoys a visually and culturally rich and diverse life, having lived and worked in Europe, Africa and the US coordinating global visual design and creative projects for the United Nations and the European Union.
As a professional artist, Kez considers Action Painting as the most apt description of her studio practice; a term coined in 1952 by art critic Harold Rosenburg as unleashing artists’ instinctive creative forces, and as a dialog between painter, materials and the canvas.
- Kez in East Harlem, New York
“I am always keen to explore different techniques that offer new expressive possibilities for visual storytelling. The result is rarely subtle, mostly dramatic and always complex.”
ARTIST STATEMENT
“I have absorbed, loved and pursued art, design and engagement with color all my life. In me, the passion to paint is innate, powerful and emotive, and I am ever drawn to creating, to stepping on that cyclical path of fear, indecision, bravery, vulnerability and passion.
I am always keen to explore different techniques that offer new expressive possibilities for visual storytelling, whatever my subject matter. Process and experimentation with techniques and the celebration of color lie at the heart of my creativity. Curiosity, intuition and experience have become central to my art practice, followed by experimentation and the replication of successful outcomes into my creative process.
Until recently, my studio practice has involved layering acrylic paints, mediums and materials, writing into the wet paint then scraping and watering, essentially deconstructing those layers. I performed this action until satisfied with the texture and the story told by the painting. The different layers would fuse to become a kaleidoscope of beautiful forms. Only the strongest and most resilient of the materials survive the process to evolve as generational layering, in turn, becoming an historical record of my hand and my process. The mood and life of the painting created correspond directly to the energy that I apply to this process.
The direction that I have recently adopted is additionally offering me the freedom to further explore the alluring qualities of the paints, to rejoice in serendipitous moments and to celebrate the spontaneity of the paint reactions. While my adventurous process seems characterized by ‘involuntaryism’, each paint reaction and outcome informs my next action.
I generally work vigorously with expressive gestural sweeps and rhythmic movement of the tool in hand, applying and smearing colours and textures, sometimes carving and slicing the paint layers from the canvas with a palette knife. The result is rarely subtle, mostly dramatic and always complex.
I have certainly been inspired by notable abstract expressionist artists and pioneers in technique such as Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer.
Like Jackson Pollock, I have little interest in identifying with a focal point in my paintings. Rather, I seek to encourage curiosity across the entire painting; to create an artwork that the viewer feels compelled to move closer to and examine what they’re seeing. Ultimately, I desire to achieve a painting that invites exchanges between reality, enchantment and raw truth.”
ART EDUCATION
2018-Present Resident Artist, Studio Back2Back, LIC, New York
2018 Resident artist at Art345, East Harlem, New York
2014-2016 Studied painting and drawing at The Art Students League of New York, USA.
Notable artists such as Jackson Pollack, Georgia O’Keefe, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Alexander Calder attended the Art Student’s League of New York.
My ASL mentors were:
- Ronnie Landfield – abstract expressionist painting;
- Kenneth McIndoe – painting;
- Costa Vivagiakis – anatomical drawing;
- Barbara Yeterian – abstract expressionist painting;
- Paul Ching Bor – watercolour techniques;
- Elizabeth Allison – expressive watercolour
1999 Oil Painting Techniques with Karl Walt, Vienna
1998 Postgraduate degree in Design, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
1997 Diploma in Colour and Design, School of Colour and Design, Sydney, Australia
EXHIBITIONS
2020 Art Expo New York, New York City, USA (postponed)
2020 ‘International Women’s Day’ – juried exhibition at One Art Space Gallery, Tribeca, New York City, USA
2020 ‘LIC-A’ – juried exhibition at Atlantic Gallery, Chelsea, New York City, USA
2019 ‘Off the Wall’, Plaxall Gallery, Long Island City, New York, USA
2019 The Other Art Fair in Dallas, Texas, USA
2019 ‘Creative Mosaic’, Plaxall Gallery, Long Island City, New York, USA
2016 ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, Retrospect Galleries, Byron Bay, Australia
2016 ‘Back to Back Realised’, East Harlem Studios, New York City, USA
2016 Group Exhibition (Painting), Phyllis Harriman Gallery, New York City, USA
2015 ‘DREAMS’, Group Exhibition (Painting), Gallery d’Arte, Chelsea, New York City, USA
2015 Group Exhibition (Painting), Phyllis Harriman Gallery, New York City, USA
2012 ‘Envisioning’, Trio of Photographers, Kampala Serena Hotel, Uganda
2010 BBC World Wildlife Photography: achieving inclusion of seven photographs in the semi-finals
2006 Solo Exhibition (Photography), Bujumbura, Burundi