SHOWCASING OUR ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

ROBIN TARBET

2024 Artist in residence - in collaboration with the Royal Society of Sculptors

Robin Tarbet (born 1981 UK) is an artist based in London, he studied at the Royal College of Art and Norwich School of Art & Design. Tarbet is a collector of everyday stuff, and he uses ad-hoc casting and print processes to make work that features transformations of recognisable things in unfamiliar situations. His practice often incorporates a performative ‘working in the field’ approach and recent projects have included plaster casting dead Jellyfish washed up on a beach to the making of moulds inside a nuclear power station.

“Being selected for the Eilean Shona Residency will have a huge impact on me as an artist. I’m looking forward to a month of breathing fresh air and talking to myself while getting lost exploring the remote island where I’ll secretly be pretending I’ve been shipwrecked.

Tarbet regularly shows both in the UK and Internationally, and his work has featured in many exhibitions ranging from prestigious Institutions to pop up artist run spaces, as well as site specific projects with The London Underground and Cultural Olympiad. In 2015 he was Artist in Residence at ESXLA in Los Angeles where he explored the city by foot to source the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and locations used in the film Blade Runner. Further a field he spent time in Arizona visiting desert bone yards containing thousands of stored aeroplanes, and specifically the failed 80s science experiment Biosphere 2, now managed by the University of Arizona. Between 2014-18 Tarbet participated in the artist initiated research project ‘Power In The Land’ a multi venue touring show across Wales where along with 9 other artists he presented his response to the decommissioning of Wylfa Nuclear Power Station - the Last Nuclear power station in Wales. In 2009 he was selected to produce a large-scale live video installation for East International, which then toured as a solo exhibition to Trafo Gallery Budapest.

“The act of walking, finding and discovering, collecting and sourcing materials is a big part of how I engage with a place. I like exploring the flotsam and jetsam that’s waiting to be found. In the city my approach to making artworks reflects my attempt to create moments of clarity from within the surrounding chaos. From the isolation of Eileen Shona I'd like to reverse this mentality and search for the little unexpected disruptions within the remoteness.”

To accompany his studio practice Tarbet has also taught Fine Art as a Senior Lecturer within many Art Schools and Universities. He is a mentor for the charity Arts Emergency, a former Trustee Director of Creekside Artists, founder of Swap Editions, and in 2022 established object|multiple an artist-led curatorial platform and store with Duncan Wooldridge.