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| ABOUT
THE ARTIST Introduction by Brendan Flynn Curator of Fine Art, Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery. Robert Perry is one of the most original and professional landscape painters of his generation, his work deeply rooted in the tradition of observation and direct response to Nature. His restless and analytical eye has ranged from the urban-industrial landscape of the West Midlands, to the Spanish high sierra and the melancholy battlegrounds of the Somme, in each case attempting to capture the unique atmosphere and spirit of the place. |
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| Adventurous
and ever resourceful, he has developed specialised methods and equipment
which enable him to work in all conditions, rain, snow, and sunshine,
by day, at night or, by the light of lamps, deep underground in long-deserted
First World War shelters and tunnels. In response to his subject, he has constantly adapted and refined his drawing and painting techniques, using pen, pastel, charcoal, air- brush, spray guns, ink rollers and spattering to achieve the effects he requires. His mobile studio enables him to undertake prolonged campaigns of drawing and painting on site during his expeditions to Europe. His expressive images from the Somme, Verdun, Oradour and Auschwitz are a triumph of sustained observation as he looks with an unblinking eye at humanity’s capacity for hatred and destruction. These pictures also speak of the fragility of human memory as nature and time slowly reclaim the battlefields and erase the scars of war. Equally, the massive panoramas of his beloved Black Country reveal a stark beauty in the industrial landscape of Britain, dappled with cloud shadows and glittering sunlight. The exhibitions offered here represent years of work and a passionate commitment to exploring the idiom of landscape. Perry uses it as a means of looking inwards. He is that rare thing, a contemporary artist with something meaningful to say about the human condition. Brendan Flynn |
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