Donna Maree Robinson
Digital Artist, Painter & Photographer (Sarina, QLD)

Donna is an experienced painter having completed many commissioned portraits and landscapes over the last 22 years. Her experimentation with many different types of media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, photography and assemblages led to the natural transition into more abstract work. Manipulating layers of photographs with Photoshop much like paint has been the predominent medium used in her work for the last 3 years.

Artists Statement:

Over the years my work has evolved from realism into abstraction, nature now providing the patterns that I work with.  My work is based upon the beaches and rivers that I live near in Queensland. Tides here are in a constant state of flux and change – with every tide brings the flotsam and jetsam of humanity – evidence of our existence within the natural world. I am attracted to the aesthetics of these objects, their provenance and the mystery that surrounds their past. I am also interested in what is happening above the horizon and what I imagine is below, as if there is a need to expose what is submerged beneath the water -the unknown factor of 'what lies beneath'. Explorations in creating luminosity, atmosphere and light within the skies are in direct contrast with the mysteries of the depths below.  My found objects enlarged out of proportion against this topography - juxtaposition between the mythical and the real, one that crosses over into the imagination and allows us to perceive what might be there depending on the condition of the day, whether it is covered in the dark blanket of night or absorbing the soaking rain from the clouds above.

Objects that are normally considered to be threats to the world’s marine eco systems are transmogrified into vibrant scenes; intolerable beauties that become metaphors for my own experiences; images that not only evoke sky, water and earth but are also infused with a sense of myself; altered realities that are as much about what I see as a spectator of these objects as they are about my own memories, everyday life experiences and the nostalgia of childhood - they hold an ambiguity.

For information on how to purchase / commission my work, please contact me below or call 07 4943 0717 during business hours. Gallery enquiries welcome.

Contact Donna Maree Robinson

QUALIFICATIONS
Master of Contemporary Arts, University of Tasmania [High Distinction]
Computer Imaging, University of Tasmania [Distinction]
Certificate IV Visual Arts and Contemporary Craft, CQIT
Certificate IV Training and Assessment, CQIT [Pending]
Senior Certificate, Mitchelton High School Brisbane [Certificate of Merit in Art]

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 Perspective [duo exhibiton], Gargett Gallery and Studio, Gargett Qld
2010 Strata’s Edge, Seek Fine Art, Paddington, Paddington, Sydney, NSW
2009 Strata’s Edge, Gallery 1/147 Adelaide Street, Brisbane, Qld
2009 Creation and Re-creation, Lagoons Gallery, Mackay, Qld
2009 Retrospect, Mackay Regional Libraries, Qld

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 Nostalgia Video, Home Project, Digital Odyssey Mackay, Qld
2010 Stock Show, Seek Fine Art, Paddington,Sydney NSW
2010 Conjecture Series, Blur exhibition, Sarina Art Gallery, Sarina Qld
2010 Passenger Series, RADF Showcase, Artspace, Mackay, Qld
2010 Collective Exhibition, Agora Gallery, New York, NYC
2010 Collective Exhibition, Seek Fine Art, Paddington, Sydney, NSW
2010 Memory Paths, University of Tasmania Creative Arts, Tas
2009 Rio Tinto Alcan Martin Hanson Memorial Awards & Exhibition, Gladstone, Qld
2009 Bounce, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania
2009 Subject Matters, Artspace, Mackay
2009 Best Friends, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania
2009 Art Street, Sydney Street, Mackay, Qld
2009 UTAS Graduate Exhibition, Central Queensland University, Mackay, Qld
2008 Juggernaut, Lagoons Gallery, Mackay, Qld
2008 Mixing It Up, Sarina Art Gallery, Field of Dreams, Sarina, Qld
2008 Collective Exhibition, Sarina Art Gallery, Field of Dreams, Sarina, Qld
2008 Debris, Central Queensland University, Mackay, Qld
2007 Sarina Art Extravaganza, Sarina, Qld
2004 Central Queensland Institute of TAFE Graduate Exhibition, Mackay, Qld
2004 Scope, Sarina Cultural Hall, Sarina Qld

ASSOCIATIONS
Board Member- RADF committee
Member- Queensland Artworkers Alliance
Tutor- Flying Arts Queensland

GRANTS, AWARDS, COMMISSIONS
2010 Artist (public art) Mackay Base Hospital Redevelopment Project, Qld (current)
2010 Mentorship with Craig Walsh, Digital Odyssey Project, Mackay, Qld
2009 Regional Arts Development Fund, Grant recipient, Mackay, Qld
2009 Short Listed for Off the Wall, Sydney, NSW
2009 Local Artist, Sarina Art Extravaganza, Qld
2009 Portraiture, Commended, Sarina Art Extravaganza, Qld
2009 Festival of the Arts, Art Street Exhibition, Mackay Qld: Exhibitor
2009 Victorian Bushfires Art Auction, Central Queensland University, Mackay: Art Donation
2008 Portraiture 1st, Sarina Art Extravaganza, Qld
2008 Open section, Commended, Sarina Art Extravaganza, Qld
2008 Sarina Shire Council Art Auction, Sarina Cultural Hall, Sarina, Qld: Exhibitor
2008 Artist in Residence, Ilbilbie Gallery, Ilbilbie, Qld
2007 Contemporary Section 2nd, Sarina Show Society, Qld
2007 Portraiture Section 3rd, Sarina Show Society, Qld
2004 Contemporary Section 2nd, Sarina Show Society, Qld

ART COLLECTIONS
Works in private collections nationally and internationally

Bibliography: publications, media interviews and broadcasts
2010 Word Blog : http://digitalodysseyblog.wordpress.com/
2010 New York. http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/donna_robinson.aspx
2010 ABC Tropical North radio interview via phone from New York City, May 14 2010
2010 Australian Art Collector Issue # 51 January – March 2010
2010 art guide Australia, march/april 2010
2010 May 26 Daily Mercury Mackay ‘Art to go on show’
2010 May 26 Midweek Mackay ‘Exhibition explores space’ full colour 2nd page review
2009 October 2nd Catalogue UTAS Academy Gallery ‘Best Friends’ exhibition
2009 July 11 Sarina Advertiser- Art review ‘Beach washes up waves of inspiration’
2009 July 3 Daily Mercury Mackay ‘Beach inspires art’
2009 June 27 Daily Mercury – ‘Art’
2009 May 23 Daily Mercury Mackay ‘Art & Words’
2008 June 16 Daily Mercury Mackay ‘History and art paint a picture of Sarina’
2004 May Daily Mercury Mackay ‘Festival highlights Sarina’s riches’

Art Review- Agora Gallery, Chelsea, New York
The works of Donna Robinson form aesthetically beautiful and utterly intriguing vistas from objects many would consider at best worthless, at worst environmentally toxic. She takes inspiration for these works from the beach where she lives, where the tides bring in the washed up debris of human civilization. The mystery of these fragments with unknown pasts attracts Robinson – her initial photographs are layered, transformed, and juxtaposed, the layering used much like paint. The beach, the ultimate boundary between land and sea, above and below, is recreated in these objects. Enlarged, cropped, they become the giant features in an imagined landscape, skies skittering above whilst ravines form. The definition and luminosity of the skyscapes Robinson uses to construct her scenes contrasts directly with the abstraction of the flotsam. Whilst the skies are open and unambiguous, the bright, highly patterned landscapes formed from the world’s waste become beautiful through being obscured.