"Living between London and Porthcawl, Mason’s work is the result of both metaphoric and actual journeys. A merger of the journeys from childhood, memories of fairground rides where painted murals of forests and rivers brought faraway places close to home and the skill of funfair ride painters, conjured up unexpected experiences, entangling the fear and excitement of rides with this reproduced landscape. This gave a glimpse of the sublime possibilities that lay beyond the boundaries of the imagination.
His work, which references a deep longing and nostalgia for the landscape, holds constant references to the legacy and traditions of art. Key to his practice are the reflections on a childhood journey across Germany in 1968, triggering revisits to the Black Forest and to the edge of Bohemia to Sächsische Schweiz where he finds parallels with the Welsh Landscape and the reverie of childhood.
From the scene painters of funfair rides to works like Arnold Böcklin’s ‘Isle of the Dead’, and Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, fragments of the artefacts of the past and contemporary art and design of now that bejewel the collections of European museums and galleries are collected in his drawings, photographs and memory, to be shared in new artworks that might act as a souvenir or trigger for those who haven’t yet been there, and after seeing the work might just want to go there, wherever that is….
Robin Mason grew up in Porthcawl South Wales. Between 1977 and 1984 he studied painting at Cardiff College of Art, Wolverhampton Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, after which he established a studio in London. He has continued to exhibit nationally and internationally, and his work can be found in public, significant private and corporate collections including the Government Art Collection. He is currently Head of Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School."