Jack Robinson


“I scan people and things…” Working in a manner evocative of Man Ray, Jack Robinson’s work reflects his preoccupation with mechanical processes, form and space.  Using a digital flatbed scanner as if it were a camera, Robinson creates hundreds of images that he then painstakingly arranges to create life‐sized works.  Robinson studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh prior to relocating to New York;  he is also a Founder and Director of the Governors Island Art Fair, now in its fourth year.  He has exhibited widely, including shows at the Gershwin Hotel, Fluxcore Gallery and Pittsburgh Filmmakers Media Arts Center, Studio at 620, the Lower East Side Arts Festival, Barthelemy Solomon Gallery and the Carnegie Museum.

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The length of time Robinson takes to complete each work is an integral part of his artistic practice.  A single scan takes around 40 seconds, with up to 150 separate scans needed to create one scannogram.  This establishes an intimate bond between artist and subject, resulting from both the physical proximity needed to take the scans, and the necessary duration of this closeness.

The numerous scans Robinson takes are then delicately pieced together to create a luminous, broken image representative of time and space filtered through the artist.  Each work displays these elements deconstructed then recreated in order to point beyond representational images.  Each work presents the viewer with Robinson’s abstracted interpretation of people and objects.

“I question and explore the space between the electronic and tactile; between the virtual and the real; between the distance of the machine and the inescapable element of human intimacy.  What I achieve in the end is a life-sized portrait that reflects the steady glow of energy, simultaneously in flux and frozen in the artifice and fear of vulnerability, revealing something that is untouchable, unreachable.”- Jack Robinson

Robinson studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh prior to relocating to New York.  He has exhibited widely, including solo shows at the Gershwin Hotel, Fluxcore Gallery and Pittsburgh Filmmakers Media Arts Center.  Group shows include exhibitions at the Governor’s Island Art Fair, Nine Eyes Gallery, The Studio at 620, the Lower East Side Arts Festival, Barthelemy Solomon Gallery and the Carnegie Museum.