Brian Robertson

Robertson’s work is an amalgam of influences ranging from the desert landscape and internet culture through painting styles that includes geometric abstraction, Surrealism, Mid-Century still life, Japanese print design, Post-Analog painting, New Romanticism and others. Primarily using himself as the subject, Robertson combines these influences and practices to create works of introspection. At times whimsical, longing, cryptic or often a combination of all three, Robertson uses objects and symbols, both real and imagined through a metaphorical lens of creating complex narratives that approach the concept of self-portraiture.

After years of producing highly technical, conceptually driven paintings, Robertson’s recent work signifies a deliberate return to the fundamentals of image-making. Color, texture, and composition now form the core of his visual language. While rooted in autobiography, the scenes he depicts are not mere representations of daily life. Rather, they are drawn from moments of personal significance—places that serve as emotional or psychological inflection points. These compositions are shaped as much by memory and feeling as by observation, unfolding with the fluidity of dreams and the distortion of recalled experience.

A hallmark of this new body of work is its heightened emphasis on surface and materiality. Texture, previously a supporting element, now takes a central role. Through an exacting process Robertson refers to as “fabric printing,” fabric is embedded into wet acrylic paint and then removed after drying, leaving behind only the imprint of its weave. This process is followed by a “drawing phase,” during which yarn and string are meticulously applied to articulate forms and suggest new ones. The resulting works evoke the visual language of folk art and textile traditions—particularly quilting—while remaining grounded in contemporary painterly practice.

This shift in approach reflects not only a transformation in Robertson’s methodology but also in his artistic intent. These works are an act of re-visioning: of the self, of space, and of the remembered moment. They synthesize decades of experimentation across media into a unified practice, one that honors both the history of painting and the tactile, narrative traditions of domestic craft. In doing so, Robertson positions himself within a lineage of artists who use material and memory to tell stories—of place, of time, and of personal transformation.