Robyn Bauer
See also additional pages to the left.
Recent Drawings
Sculpture
Garden of Eden
See also my alternative website www.robynbauer.com for a survey of my earlier work.
Robyn is currently director of Robyn Bauer Studio Gallery. Former President of Sculptors Queensland.
Robyn has worked as Education Officer at the Queensland Art Gallery, as Art History lecturer at Queensland Institute of Technology and Brisbane Institute of Art. She has also worked as art critic for The Courier Mail, Art Slide librarian for the University of Queensland and Art Teacher at Nudgee College. She has taught art classes from her studio since 1993 and done portrait commissions for many years.
Education
Robyn studied as a child in Dalby with the Australian Flying Arts School under Mervyn Moriarty and in Brisbane with the Eastaus Art School.
She graduated with a BA from the University of Queensland in 1978 and upgraded to an honours degree in 1990 with a thesis entitled "Angel or Whore" -the women in Hogarth's etchings.
In 1991 she completed a Diploma of Education at Queensland University of Technology. Many years of life drawing with David Paulson have provided a firm foundation from which her individual style has evolved.
Exhibitions and Awards
Numerous solo and group exhibitions in Queensland since a solo exhibition at the University of Queensland Staff Club in 1977 while still a student.
Awards include - Portraiture Prize Maryborough, Clevevland Art Award, 2001
Wide Bay Art Award and Caltex City of Brisbane Award.
Represented in collections around Australia, England and the United States.
Her current work could be described as "Symbolism" and she is now focusing on ceramic sculpture.
Upcoming shows include
2009 - January, Logan Regional Gallery
2009- May, "Homecoming" Dalby Regional Gallery
2009- August, "Exotica" a voyage to Terra Australis, Robyn Bauer Studio Gallery
Recent work - "The Chess Exhibition"
a solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture about chess, about birds and a personal symbolism that combines the two
Seventy-two Symbolic Souls 184 x 91cm
My obsession with birds and bird symbolism has been with me for many years. The significance of both my names being bird names has of course, occurred to me.
The concept of chess and chess sets is that they are symbols also. Each piece represents so much more than the obvious. They are symbols, metaphors for many aspects of life.
The bird symbolises the human soul, - the exaltation of thought and imagination. Throughout history people have associated the bird with a freedom from earthly limitations and the catharsis of spiritualisation.
The elememt of air is the bird's domain. They were believed to mediate between the earthly realm and the heavens. They carried the souls of humans upwards, at last free of the restraints of the earth bound body.
It was while laying with drawings of wings that I discovered that my hand silhouettes and my wing drawings were the same. The feathers look like fingers and they are both sets of appendages. The idea took off from there, - the hand bird and the birdhand. A bird in the hand, a hand in the bird.
To me it was simultaneously something amazingly obvious, yet an incredible epiphany. Certainly it was an original thought. I had never seen this idea played with in art of any sort.
I have explored the idea ever since. My birds have grown hands, my hands are birds. Now my trees have also grown hands.
Everything is interconnected. I am making parallels that I feel are already there in nature and in spirit.
Pawns are usually dispensable and can be manipulated by greater powers, but in chess pawns have the potential to improve themselves. If they plod their way like good foot soldiers they can be rewarded.
They are usually indistinguishable from each other but mine can be easily distinguished. Their sizes and their markings vary.
The Caladrius bird is a legendary all white bird that lives in the house of a king. If it looks into the face of a sick person, it means that the persom will live, but if the caladrius bird looks away, the sick person will die.
To cure a sick person the caladrius must look at them and draw the sickness into itself. The bird then flies up towards the sun where the disease is burned up and destroyed.
Black Caladrius Bird on Pink/Orange and White Caladrius Bird on Pink/Orange
The butterfly represents the principal of metamorphosis. It is a symbol of eternal beauty and an eternal victim of time. The fish symbolises abundance, wealth, fertility and the renewal of life.
I have given my queen both of these symbols. The queen has the greatest capacity of all the chess pieces.
Leonardo said "the cat is perfection" and I'm sure that is true, but perfection is also the bird. A little set of bones and fluids and a few feathers and it can actually fly! - actually have its total weight suspended on the air currents. I think the cat chases after the bird because it wants some of that perfection.
My artwork is inspired by the simplest of things, the bird, the hand, the tree, but these simple objects have become so multi-layered with meanings through their depiction by millennia of artists. To me they are iconic and symbolise practically everything there is say about life. I like to hint at these other meanings, and their interconnectedness.