In fact, he denies having any ambition at all, and describes his process as less of the tortured, dark torment of the soul and more as “I want to paint like I’m doing a crossword puzzle trying to do the Times crossword in under 20 minutes is really hard but if you can, then you should. He takes his work seriously, but not solemnly. Robert’s lightness of touch belies the talent and experience. Just like that it all sounds relaxed, inevitable, and laced with the essential element of luck. The owner used it as a Christmas card and sent it her friend the gallery owner Rebecca Hossack, who got in touch with me and asked me to be their dog painter…and that was how I was launched.” “I met the dog, it bit me, and I painted this smooth haired fox terrier, Trevor. His drawings and paintings of birds were selling well in a shop in the seaside town of Whitstable, Kent, when someone asked, ‘Does he do dogs?’.” He does, as it turns out. In truth, don’t all relationships seem mysterious and unknowable?ĭifficult, yes, but not impossible. “I’m a bit frightened of them, I was scared to get it wrong, as my style doesn’t lend itself to the horses but now I’ve tailored the way I work.” And, of course, the intimacy of people’s relationships with their horses are a mystery to non-horsey people. Making money from your art is really difficult.” With all that understanding of what you’re about, you have to commit 100% to the art.
However, he had the courage of his creative convictions and made art his priority, “It was a defining moment when I stopped work and just did this.
On graduation, he remembers, just as his dad predicted, “If you’re not making money from your art straight away, you get a job and then your art gets sidelined’.
He ignored the advice in favour of London’s prestigious St Martin’s School of Art (the late Lucian Freud, Jarvis Cocker and Stella McCartney are fellow alumni). There has to be some spontaneity, especially in dogs.”īased in New York, Robert grew up in Luton, the son of a bouncer who advised him to get a job as a bricklayer because “everyone knows there’s no money in art”. You can over-paint, over-deliberate, over-analyse. “I want to paint like I’m doing a crossword puzzle trying to do the Times crossword in under 20 minutes is really hard but if you can, then you should.
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