Masks in wild landscapes, derelict buildings, demolition projects and disused public lavatories. The grotesque body, unsealed and in process. Anxiety, symbols, myth and nightmares. Paintings, cartoons, videos and performances that are hard to see, frustrating or have to be climbed in to. Unanswerable questions, sex, carnival and death.
I am a childish and very old artist living in Bristol, London and Oxford. I paint my dreams, private stories, fairy tales and religion. I work with my early life. I come from a post-war English family culture that was anxious, provincial and bourgeois but secretly loving and I attempt the impossible task of painting my way out of this wilderness.
Currently, I mostly work in watercolour on paper, and in oils on any surface I can find. I like human bodies which I place in mythical or archetypal settings. They are a conversation with myself and with my unconscious. Clear conclusions elude me.
Robert Mills 