Ronnie Robinson’s energetic, expressive portraits are comfortably ambiguous; collapsing time and space to feel familiar yet unfamiliar. Robinson works from photographs as well as his memory to capture portraits of people who would or could have been, with an emotional intensity that is matched only by the earnestness of his brush work. Often taking a pose from a photograph, Robinson applies his own imagination to the scenario to conjure a character with the familiarity of a family member, sprinkled with a touch of peculiarity. Robinson’s paintings themselves are immediate, loose, bold and charged. Often working with a ferocious energy, Robinson works and reworks the surfaces of his canvases multiple times before settling on a final composition. Through this subtle and nuanced use of colour, the works end up achieving a sepia warmth reminiscent of vintage photographs, only adding to the feeling that these people once existed and engaged with each other. Working on multiple canvases at one time, the works produced during the last few weeks at the residency all vibrate at the same frequency, with visual cues and colour uniting the body of work. Ronnie Robinson has previously featured in shows at The Know Contemporary in Los Angeles and also had a solo exhibition at The Cabin LA with Danny First. We hosted Ronnie for a residency at our London location in October 2022.