What's it all about then? Colin Robertson

Part 2. What’s it all about then 31 March–9 April 2022.

‘I’ve often used words and/or text in drawing but, for a time at least, they appear to have taken over, to become the main building block of the image on paper and spell out what the drawings are about   Statements – questions - no answers or resolutions but, on the positive side, the fact of wonder.’

Colin Robertson, born Glasgow 1936, now lives in Battlefield, south side, with partner Anne.  Graduate of Dundee College of Art and Technology in design & crafts.  In a post-diploma year he mostly drew and painted and won a travelling scholarship. Suffering from severe overdosing of ART in Italy, he escaped eastwards and returned with drawings and 3- dimensional works in response to the interior spaces of the mosques in Istanbul. Exhibited in Edinburgh in late 60's, paintings of Dundee bus conductresses and life aboard a trawler.

Worked at many trades: wireless operator doing National Service; commercial artist in Glasgow; farmworker in Perthshire; volunteer kibbutznik in Israel (before 67 war); trawler deckhand on boats sailing out of Rekyavik and Grimsby in winter and painting in a cottage in Glenisla in summers; cinema night-cleaner in London; council gardener in Westminster and trade union branch secretary in a local authority.  He has always drawn and painted.