I see metaphors between natural processes and human nature. When juxtaposed, they create a new perspective of the other, ironically, a wholly different system of relationships. I gravitate to investigation within a dichotomy because duality has been part of my existence from childhood. As a child I was forced to straddle two cultures that were often in opposition with each other. At the same time I lived within an awesome landscape that asserted itself over the few human constructions within it. The experiences between me and the dominant culture showed me that the polarity between cultures is tense and alienating, and difficult, at best, to reconcile. The landscape had its own say in regard to and regardless of human culture. Thus I more easily grasp comparisons between human and nature, and find those inherent ironies approachable.

If art making is an investigation, the investigation for me is a practice/ process of becoming part of the world around me (grounding myself) while at the same time trying to reach for meaning beyond the physicality of this life. To do this I draw upon both the forms and processes of nature to create a visual language within which to express human conditions.

I look for ironies. I want to go to the space between things, the mystery. I look for the tension between subjects or between the subject and the handling of it. I look for ambiguous space where questions are asked but answers aren't given, where neither side of the dialectic is right or wrong.

I am interested in issues of identity, combined with the world of materials and matter within space and time. I am drawn to the sensual nature of materials, and I am interested in the new and unexpected result of combining them with feelings and ideas. I compile, I compare in a moment, under the canopy of experience and emotion.

I scribble. A scribble is essential and elemental in the sense that it is primarily the record of gesture, the investigation of movement and materials. It explores purposeless energy, emotional energy, the unconscious and the intuitive, and manifests those through materials. It is a record, or map, of a moment of intuition plus energy.

I look for surprises from the mix of materials and action. The creation of lines from moving a pencil around, the response of pigment and paper to the application of a drop of water, the emergence of space by layering pigments and mediums over a surface, are results that are largely unpredictable. I strive for those material and content surprises.

I remake images into my own. Depicting image is a consistent thread through the history of art, and still part of my basic impulse. In image making, the scribble is tamed, subordinated to looking. The hand must follow the eye. The product reflects the need to work through an idea embodied in, or associated with, an image. To the extent that I make images, I am injecting a subject - usually my perception of a place or being - with as much of my vision as I can make it absorb.

I mix and compile. Juxtaposing materials of the earth, plant and animal realms, with human constructions creates a dialectic that challenges preconceived notions. Comparing things not alike often achieves an ironic conclusion, and suggests the possibility of a new, if not yet defined, basis for systems of understanding.

I explore the space between.

Linda Robinson

Dolores 12/04