Fountain Fine Art

Robert Harrison

A Welsh artist from Neath, born in 1943, who studied at the West of England College of Art, Bristol, where he achieved a degree in Art and Design. After a postgraduate course at Cardiff University, he taught Art at a comprehensive school in Hertfordshire before becoming a full time artist.

Robert creates textures by overlaying alkyd oil paint with a palette knife, but often resorting to rags and even fingers to obtain this multi-coloured effect. The result is a delightful fragmentation of the surfaces that is so attractive.

His paintings are almost entirely based on the Welsh landscape. The artist’s intention is to fuse two different interpretations of the subject into a single unified composition.

The paintings explore the possibility of combining familiar landscape views with abstract designs. Robert’s paintings demonstrate his ability to fuse man-made structures into the surrounding landscape by constructing abstract architectural forms in the lower half. These constructions echo the subject and its characteristics i.e. the lower part captures the essence of the subject and is synonymous with the upper and joined together perfectly.

This is the objective; to find an abstract equivalent or counterpart for the subject revealing its previously hidden identity. “I try to analyse the structure of the subject whether it is man-made or natural, real or imaginary or obvious or discreet, in order to find this hidden identity.”

Exhibitions

2000 Art Matters, Tenby
2001 Artist of the Year exhibition St David’s Hall, Cardiff
2003 Bristol Guild
2006 Attic Gallery, Swansea
2008 Attic Gallery, Swansea
2009 Fountains Fine Art, Llandeilo