Stephen Robertson

Hi, welcome to my page! I hope you enjoy browsing my work.

My paintings are exactly what they appear to be. There’s no symbolism or nuance and it’s not necessary to interpret. They’re raw, direct experiences of people and things, and they’re painted in a raw, direct way. So in that sense, they are what they are.

I complete each work in one session. If they’re not finished within that time, the moment is irretrievably lost and the painting is scraped or abandoned. It doesn’t work any other way. New paintings are then painted over old.

Why I should need to work this way is rooted in a kind of shock of realising ‘what is’. I have always been a little shocked by the immediacy of ordinary experience, and throughout my development as a painter, I’ve worked to represent that as accurately as possible.

This explains the ordinariness of my subject matter, and the narrow range of people and subjects I choose. I paint the people I know (not many), and I paint the things around me.

So, no grand themes of life. Instead, I paint the intimacy of familiarity, but seen anew, such as in those moments of clarity when the ordinary and familiar seems strange and unfamiliar.

I believe those moments are gifts of true awareness. To see w...

I've had very little formal art education. I began work as an artist in my early 30s, after a kind of epiphany inspired me to leave my career in advertising and pursue a life as an artist. Ever since then, my focus has been to clarify and simply my vision, in order to make my paintings as coherent and meaningful as possible. My deepest wish is that you connect with these paintings and share something of my perception of being alive today.

2007: C2 Gallery, Stoke Hammond, Bedfordshire UK - Solo Exhibition

2008: IceTwice Gallery, Olney, Buckinghamshire UK - Various Group shows