In a world dominated by spectacle, Rachael Robb quietly contemplates her surroundings through the slow, meditative practice of small-scale oil painting in her solo exhibition, I have been here before.
Steeped in painting techniques that began in Northern Europe centuries ago, Robb deftly handles her materials to create luminous mirages. Hovering between the mundane and the sublime these paintings are suspended outside of time, delicately layering the past, present and future.
Bringing together fragments of gestures, images and objects from her daily life, Robb's paintings form tightly cropped assemblages, to examine her return to a home left long ago.
Rachael Robb, I have been here before, continues the Warrnambool Art Gallery’s commitment to profiling the work of important regional artists at pivotal moments in their careers. The exhibition is Robb’s first public gallery institutional showing.
Rachael Robb holds a Bachelor Fine Art (Painting) from RMIT. She lived and worked in Europe and London for 28 years before returning to Australia in 2020. Robb has exhibited in the USA, England, Czech Republic and Australia, and was recently a finalist in the Darling Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery and the Len Fox Painting Prize. Her paintings are held in private collections internationally.