Jim Robb

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

I began drawing in my very early 20's. I titled my first sketch book "Drawings from the sub conscious". All that work was primarily ink on paper, directly from the mind, no pencil, 'therapy work' I called it, purging the demons.

I was born with Ambliopia, lazy eye & cross eyed, as a baby and child, had surgery when I was 5 to make them straight, still blind in my right eye. Left-handed. Only seeing from my left eye makes me very right-brained, which is great for abstract thinking in both drawing and painting.

Began painting again in my early 40's, after not painting for more than 20 years. About the same time I was considered totally disabled for psychiatric reasons, Schizotypal Personality Disorder (whatever that is) - magical thinking, dwelling on the spirit world, obsession with the paranormal.

For the past 13 years I have painted almost daily, working and reworking - great therapy. More 'purging the demons' has also allowed me to recreate things in my own manner. Drugs and self-hypnosis, delving into the deep recesses of the mind, past life regression, trying to see the future. Keep in touch with the Spirits Primal, tribal, alien and spiritual landscapes, producing strange and haunting portraits I call 'Personages', most are of myself I suppose.

Painting can be quite painful, digging ever deeper, like Picasso said, 'make something new every time' - to paraphrase. The picture making process can also be quite physical, all this slashing with the knife, Create Chaos, then make sense from this chaos. Every day I work, if I didn't' I'd surely would go insane!