Multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator living in Kitchener

In addition to degrees from the University of Western Ontario and McMaster University, Rob holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo. As a visual artist, he has exhibited at galleries internationally and regionally such as the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Robert Langen Gallery, LOOP Gallery, the Limner Gallery (New York City), the Museum of Fine Arts (Florida State University), Crossing Art (Flushing, NY), 1650 Gallery (Los Angeles). Rob’s photo documentary series, Sideswiped Tomorrows, was exhibited in the Nitra Gallery’s Bunker Space (Nitra, Slovakia). He also presented at the Multipoint International Painting Symposium.

As an award-winning filmmaker, Rob’s work has been screened at international venues such as LE MUP International Short Film Festival (Montreal, QC), Hamilton Film Festival (Hamilton, ON), Toronto Urban Film Festival, the Not Still Art Film Festival (Brooklyn, NY), Cincy Fringe Festival (Cincinnati, Ohio), and Videoholica (Varna, Bulgria), FIFA International Film Festival (Montreal, Quebec), and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (New York, NY)

Rob is currently the Head of Visual Art at Forest Heights Collegiate Institute and teaches photography for Conestoga College’s BDes program.

Artist statement

I would describe my art practice as a seesaw between the analog world of painting and drawing, and the digital world of photography and video. The push-pull movement between these creative fields continually informs my creative impulses. Chance plays a central role in the production of my work as random incidents are discovered through paint application or orchestrating multiple exposure images. Whether video or paint, the resulting visual dialogue is concerned with multi-layered imagery that is an intuitive
exploration.

I consider my work to be an ongoing investigation in fractured images, dissolving forms, and non-linear narratives. Historical reference points act as a fulcrum for my work to pivot around. This can involve researching a specific group of artists in a discipline and other times uncovering terminology and cultural trends from different eras. The material becomes social and historical motifs within the work. Cinema, warfare, mythology, and pop-culture are often a starting place for the conceptual framework used to construct Images.

The two approaches of my artistic practice serve to both balance and inform the other. The multi-layered videos and manipulated photographs affect the visual aesthetics of my paintings. My video experiments and digital work share a spontaneity and colour aesthetics with my painterly discourse. The work is often done simultaneously in the studio so the painted and digital images are in conversation with one another.