Behind the Image Looking at the works of Steve B Robinson
Cover image; “I’m a Girl, AND I’m Brown?” Oil on canvas; 24 x 30 inches All of the works, literary and pictorial, are copyrighted, and owned by the artists Steve B Robinson. This publication should not be sold in any form. Published by ACp 2015
All of the works of S.B.Robinson are personal in some manner and this one is no exception. There is a companion piece which was inspired by the same person but for slightly different reasons. Whilst at university over the years of 2005 to 2008 he met and became friends with an Asian single mother. An unusual woman. The title is a quote from her when she spoke of being a little girl and looking in the mirror and realizing for the first time that she was in fact a girl and that she was brown. Apparently she was not expecting to be born like that at all. She was, apparently, expecting to be a boy. This is not to say she was gay, or a tomboy, in fact she was very feminine, and this may or may not have been her deciding early on in life that if she was going to be a female she would be an ultra female…………….this is not known, its just a theory, and since her current location is unknown she cannot be asked. So she was painted not as a little girl, but as an adult. The age she is painted at is important as it shows how long she has carried this conversation with herself in her head and heart. She never actually posed nude either, and nor does she resemble the portrait. In fact the portrait resembles the artist somewhat, in a younger day. This was for two reasons, firstly she didn’t like revealing herself to the world, which is why her name isn’t given, and secondly because the artist is showing how he relates to the essence of the sentence if not the physical actuality.
The mark making is loose, something that he is focused on doing, but some early works might be tighter, and the background shows an
abstract, perhaps expressionistic outlook thus showing where his current works have their roots.
Why did he choose to paint her nude? To emphasise her ethnicity and, of course, because he can.
the artist, Steve B Robinson , attending the opening night of Leicester’s Open 26, where one of his
paintings had been accepted in 2015. And no, he isn’t Scottish or Irish, but he is sporting the Pride of Scotland tartan.
Contact with the artist can be made via his website, steve-b-robinson.co.uk. His studio is in the Sparkenhoe Business Centre, Hinckley, Leics.