Kiron Robinson: "ummm... no"

Kiron Robinson: “ummm…no” presents drawing, photography, neon and sculptural forms that continue Robinson's thinking around doubt, belief and failure as constructive devices, projecting a world where everything is in some regard uncertain.

A suite of tightly cropped and curiously composed photographs reveal a woman’s hands, handbags and accessories. With images originally sourced from fashion magazines — but rephotographed by the artist and custom framed — the work throws the meaning of both the images and, by extension, the things they ‘document’ into question. The work, though clearly depicting objects of desire, conveys a sense of anxiety with its disconcerting absence of narrative, a tension that is further amplified by a nearby neon work, reading ‘stumble, stumble, stumble’.

A sense of fragility and contingency also plays out in Robinson’s new large-scale drawings, which highlight the awkwardness and precariousness of human existence—though undercut, as always, by Robinson’s wry humour. The word ‘happy’, for example, is underscored by a large red gash while two box-like figures face off in a funny, but crude game of one-upmanship. Though they may seem frivolous at first glance, these drawings—like much of Robinson’s work—imbue a flippant or humorous aside with an underlying sense of melancholy or foreboding.