Robbie Bushe IV

Above: Detail from 'Application Day'. Below: Application Day.

It has been a busy weekend with Friday evening spent at The Nomads Tent seeing the wonderful; She'koyokh klezmer and Balkan Band. 
On Saturday, I returned to Edinburgh to catch the last hour of Robbie Bushe's exhibition 'Invasions and Excavations' at the Open Eye Gallery.
Robbies work, produced over the last eighteen months, not only explores the layers of the city, but also personal layers of family,  politics and work.

Below: The Writers Group.

Robbie's work has evolved over the decades from large canvases with perspective warped to catch all of the available angles of his visual narrative, to these new works that are incredibly detailed, a succession of vignettes and scenes.

Above: The File Managers' Minions.

Jewel like, each image is a jigsaw of miniatures forged into a mirror of the complexity of modern life, a cacophony of lives overlaying each other, some touching each other, but mostly in isolation.

There is a futility, a madness and a love; a layering of humanity and emotion in these works that bring to mind Mexican votives and sometimes even comic strips, especially with the use of speech bubbles in 'New Hadrian's Wall', Placards in 'The Space Utilisation Manager and the Chasm of Doom' and the division of space and action throughout the exhibition.
These works are not only pulling together in the embrace of the composition  a mass of emotion, action and thought, but also different genres of contemporary art and art tradition.

 Below: detail from New Hadrian's Wall

Above: The Space Utilisation Manager and the Chasm of Doom

Robbie Bushe III

Above are details from Robbie Bushe's installation, a modular drawing called the 'accumulation of small advantages' at Visual Arts Scotland 'FLY 2016' at the Royal Scottish Academy building on the Mound, Edinburgh until Dec 27th. This is a dynamic mosaic /mural drawing in a similar format to Laura Carlin's ceramic tile mural of  The History of London'.
Robbie's drawings have layered coloured line which creates a lively three-dimensional offset effect and a highly detailed rendering and composition.

Robbie Bushe II

Robbie Bushe and his partner Catharine Davison spent last summer creating a studio and now it is complete they are making full use of it. The top image is Robbie's piece 'Widening Anticipation' exhibited at VAS, The RCA, Edinburgh until the end of February.
At the moment Robbies work is going through a frantic linear stage, where thoughts observations and imaginings overlay one another in a massive shimmering translucence of action and line.
Robbie has been working in sketchbooks with coloured ball point and this visual language has moved into his paintings whilst his narrative is the panorama of the city of Edinburgh, its urban landscape and its people, mixed with Robbie's own imaginings and fantastic daydreams.

Robbie Bushe I

I was lucky enough to go to art college with Robbie Bushe in Edinburgh, though he was in another year group, and both Robbie and his work were fun of fun, humour and unique observation. This is a selection form those ECA days. When I posted the work of 山下由介 yesterday with its domestic observation and perspective it reminded me of these domestic scenes by Robbie with their aerial views and observations of  mundane life, spiced with anticipation and disappointment.