Tasmanian artist Robert Ikin 83, is my Dad. As the child of an artist, my siblings and I spent countless evenings huddled beside or under the cheese and biscuit table at art galleries, scoffing squares of cheddar and stale crackers. Around us, the adults sipped box red wine, smoked cigarettes, and talked about art and mundanities.
The scent of an art gallery is still fresh in my mind. I recall smells of paint, wood varnish, cigarette smoke and seagrass matting, the floor covering of choice in the 70’s. I would count red stickers when they appeared on pieces of work hung on white-washed walls and excitedly tug on Dad’s sleeve to relay the news of a sale. He would stop talking and smile at me with raised eyebrows and then return to his conversation and his wine.
Robert last exhibited work in a gallery setting in 2016 at the Queen Victoria Museum, Inveresk, Launceston. The Revive Exhibition—curated by Ralf Haertel, featured work by individual artists and community groups with recycling and sustainability at it’s core. Robert’s pieces were created from mixed media and found objects.
History
Robery Ikin’s resume spans decades, countries, and mediums. As a young painter in 1963 Robert was part of a group of Launceston Art School Graduates who named themselves ‘Images’ – Robert Ikin, George Richardson, Tim Waller, Wal Sutherland and Blair Gamble were the original five group members. The group reunited in 2004 for a show in the Launceston City Centre Studio Gallery. Sadly, George , Tim and Blair have since passed.
The original members were the inspiration for another group of aspiring artists who called themselves ‘Images of Tasmania’.
George Richardson, an incredible abstract artist and art educator, was my godfather. He would always playfully ask me “are you reading your bible Lisa?” I have vague memories of Tim Waller, a fine painter and also art educator and memories of weekends at Blair’s beautiful home in Hobart, as a child. Dad and Wally still regularly catch up and make music CDs together.
Around this time, 1964, I was born in Launceston at Queen Victoria Hospital. We lived in a modern home in West Launceston, a stone’s throw from the Cataract Gorge. We moved to live in Adelaide at some point, where Dad continued to paint but also worked a day job. For as long as I could remember, he was a travelling salesman by day. We lived in a terrace house on Rundle Street. In my mind the sun was always shining. My sister was born there in 1967.
The sudden death of my mother when I was five brought significant change and trauma. We moved back to Tasmania, living with my grandmother for a time before dad remarried. For a number of years, Dad was a lighthouse keeper, and we lived an isolated life with correspondence schooling on some of the most wild and remote islands in Tasmania and Australia. Eventually with new siblings (a sister and brother) and a need for me to attend high school, we moved back to the Tasmanian mainland when I was 12 years old.
In 1979, Robert completed a postgraduate qualification in ceramics at the School of Art, Tasmanian State Institute of Technology, Launceston, followed by his first exhibition at the Design Centre of Tasmania in Launceston.
He was studying and practising art for most of my high school years. We lived out of town and on the last school bus stop for country town, Scottsdale. After living in isolation for so long it didn’t feel unusual to still be on the fringes.
I finished Year 10 at Scottsdale High in 1980 and in early 1981, there was a move to Darwin, where Dad took a job in a Darwin Art School. I went to year 11 in Darwin, met a boy and left home. I ended up living there for four years before fleeing the boy and the humidity to live in Perth. Dad only stayed a year in Darwin, returning to Tasmania with new partner, Gardie and plans to settle down.
Public Collections
Robert has exhibited widely throughout Tasmania and is represented in many public collections, including the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Devonport Regional Gallery, University of Tas Collection, Hobart and the Tasmanian Government’s Art for Public Buildings Scheme.
Snakepit Gallery
In 1992, Rob and fellow artists Bea Maddock and Gardenia Palmer formed the Launceston Art Cooperative. The cooperative’s headquarters was a small disused warehouse in Launceston, which they named ‘Snakepit’ due to rumours that a snake trainer used to train snakes in the building!
The space existed for local Launceston artists and craftspeople to exhibit freely as part of a cooperative membership. The gallery was a huge success and hosted over 100 fortnightly shows until 1996 when the cooperative dissolved due to fewer artists using the space.
By this stage, I was living on the other side of Australia, and had birthed my first child, but I remember visiting the Snakepit when I was in Launceston. My grandmother was still alive as I have a photo sitting on the steps of the Snakepit with her. I’m sure seagrass matting was a feature.
No Poetry
One of Robert’s major works, ‘No Poetry,’ a mixed-media work using mainly found objects, was exhibited at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart and The Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston. Representing the eight months from January 1 to August 6, the finished work was presented on the anniversary of Hiroshima Day 1995. He recreated the work in 2001 and subsequently in 2013 as a moving sound and image piece.
I have one piece from the No Poetry show, an exhibition I attended while visiting with family. My second baby was born in 1994 and I was still living in Perth.
Public Art
In 2000, Robert installed a huge ceramic work entitled “Mandala,” 8.5 metres in diameter, commissioned by the Tasmanian Government. The piece comprised 888 hand-made tiles, each hand-incised and hand-decorated. For the next few years, Robert consistently exhibited and installed public art throughout Tasmania.
Pictured below is some detail of the ceramic tiles installed at the Ulverstone Police building in 1996.
European Connections
2007 saw the first collaboration with the Netherlands and the University of Tasmania. Robert was part of the Tasmanie Project, “No Person is an Island” suite of works and “At the Hop” – five short projection pieces at Gallerie de Meerse, Hoofdorp, Netherlands.
Between 2010 and 2015, Robert Ikin and his wife and fellow artist Gardie Palmer exhibited in the Netherlands multiple times:
- Galerie ‘t Haentje Je Te Paart , Mels Dees. Middelburg
- pARTners Kulturele Evenementen Groepen Schijndel in Schijndel
- Museum allen Tijden.
- Ateliers Patagonia + Guests – KEG-expo, Schindel.
In 2008, he and Gardie lived in Paris as part of the prestigious Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency at the Cite des Arts. Some of the work he made in Paris was exhibited in Marcher Sur La Pelouse—Exhibition from past residents of the McCulloch Studio in Paris at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, in 2009 and his ‘From Here to Patagonia’ show at Colville Street Art Gallery in Hobart in 2010.
Sculpture Projects
Robert has been involved in many site-specific sculpture projects at incredible outdoor sites, including twice at Roaring Beach on the Tasman Peninsula, the Mt. Wellington Sculpture Trail, Jackeys Marsh Sculpture Trail, Shadows on the Water on the Upper Esk in N.E. Tasmania, and The National Rose Garden at Woolmers, all in Tasmania.
I accompanied Dad to one of the Roaring Beach sculpture projects in 2001. The location and the incredible pieces became the backdrop to my marriage breakup – if you’re going to have a crisis, why not in one of Tasmania’s wilderness locations and surrounded by art!
Solo Exhibition
His most recent solo exhibition, “Interactions,” was at Poimena Gallery in 2013, where he had just completed an Artist-in-Residency. This show included video documentation of “Solstice to Solstice,” a piece based on daily divinations from winter solstice to summer solstice 2012, as well as new ceramics and digital works.
Exhibition 2024
Far from resting on his laurels, Robert has never stopped creating new work and is now on the eve of his first solo show in eight years.
On May 16 2024, the walls at Gallows Art Space at Launceston College will become a temporary home to some of Robert’s newest works with a scattering of the old. He says it’s a retrospective without being a retrospective- spanning years and encompassing a multitude of mediums from ceramics and oil painting to digital images and a mixture of all those things. The show is a non-commercial show which Robert says gives him a lot of freedom to explore and create.
He wants to show the links between old and new. For example, the patterns on some of his old ceramic pots are echoed in the work he is producing today. Pieces from 10 years ago that he created using a lightbox have been brought back to life in new multimedia prints and collages. Small ceramic figures mounted in a display box were recently turned into images on bathroom tiles in a private Launceston home. The same figures have been featured for many years, both as ceramics and images.
Robert currently works from his studio in the Tasmanian bush, a peaceful retreat from the hustle of city life, even though the closest semblance of ‘city life’ is the sleepy town of Launceston. His studio is a place of seeming disorder and multi-layers of works, finished, part finished and repurposed. It’s only when you spend time that you realise everything has its place in time and is a testament to Robert’s unique perspective and artistic processes.
Robert loves fine-tuning the pieces and eventually containing them in frames and perspex boxes, a process he finds exciting. He collects frames over a long period from second-hand shops, Op shops, and friends. He then personalises each one by stripping them back, extending them to fit the unique 3D quality of his work.
I was privileged to spend a couple of weeks with Dad earlier this year, observing the finishing touches to his latest exhibition. Come to the Gallows Art Space at Launceston College between 16 May and 16 June to see what promises to be the show of a lifetime. The opening will be held on Thursday 16 May 2024.
107-119 Paterson Street, TAS, 7250
All in a Day Adventures 