Clair Robins
SINKS
The CV19 pandemic, certainly magnified the importance of our general hygiene when washing our hands, not just the normal rinse and shake - the government recommended that we need a thorough 20 seconds worth several times a day.
Just before the lockdown first hit in March 2020, soap vanished off the shelves and hands became sore and felt raw with the constant washing.
Spending more time at the sink and at home with my family, was the catalyst to this body of work. Capturing moments of daily life around our stainless steel basin not only records lockdown life but how we live and the activities we undertake – Every day brings another moment, object or event to visually capture, certainly when the mundane becomes exciting.
But on a positive note, I am also quite pleased that a traditional ‘bar of soap' has now returned to our household.
Robins is a photographic visual artist and educator in FE from Leicester UK. She is an obsessed image maker - her work, approach and style has been evolving throughout her life and has overlapped both traditional and digital processes.
Much of Robins artwork creations has stemmed from observation of the mundane and daily life. Nostalgia, memories and conceptionally constructed scenarios often emerge and question within her story telling. Visual language, narrative and aphoristic humour collides with her compositions and observations, her work is quite personal and intimate, occasionally using her growing daughters as ‘props’ in her photographs.
Collections, artefacts, portraiture merge and collide with memorabilia, within her still life photographs. Robins’ passionate reflection on ‘who we are’ and ‘how we live’ probes and connects on many levels, ultimately it examines our existence and world.
Much of her current work has taken inspiration from the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, it’s really given her an opportunity to re-evaluate her environment and the simple challenges we encounter on a daily basis.
It’s fairly easy to recognise that the mundane is never mundane in Robins compelling creations.