by: Gillian Damborg

One of Robin Cameron’s large-scale pieces was a giant fabric sculpture that hung from the ceiling at dance party called ‘Your Face is Melting Off’ while kids guzzled cheap beer and danced around aimlessly. By the end of the night the piece was torn to pieces and left shredded on the dirty dance floor. Far from upset, Robin was satisfied to see her piece consumed by such a successful event.

We like a lady with the confidence to try new things, and we see her expanding her tools and styles. Tiny books, fabric sculptures, watercolor illustrations and detailed hand-drawn typography, creative writing, photography—she tries her hand at everything.

Born in 1981 in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, Robin has shown her work all over the world including Toronto, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, LA and Tokyo. After graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (now an official University), Robin moved to New York where she currently resides.

Do you miss anything about Vancouver?

Third Beach.

Other than the fact that NY is NY, how has living there expanded your opportunities?

People take you more seriously for some reason. Maybe they know how hard it is to live here–all the people, it’s hot in the summer, cold in the winter, dirty, loud, expensive. But the thing about it is that when you ask this city for something it somehow gives it to you.

What neighborhood are you living in?

Chinatown. 5th floor walk-up.

What’s the best part about New York?

You can be totally anonymous, and alone but somehow be surrounded by people. I like the way I get to move through the city too, walking or biking it feels very connected, way more than in LA. Here you run into people on the street. Also the bookstores and cultural opportunities.

How do you feel about the young artist scene in New York right now?

I like my friends who make art and happen to live here.

Who are some of your favorite up and coming artists?

Lukas Geronimas, Niall McClelland, Shay Semple, Paul Cowan, Asher Penn, Kayla Guthrie, Megan Plunkett, Martine Syms, Arielle DePinto, Leslie Kulesh, Jennifer Sullivan.

How has formal training shaped your style?

I think art school was helpful for giving me a vernacular to really be able to talk about the work and think critically about what I was making. I tend to look at a lot of different sources, so mostly that helped train my eye. But really is just about actually doing the work. Also I would rather think in terms of ideas as opposed to just simply a visual style.

You use a lot of different mediums and outlets for your art, and it seems you are expanding this even more now. Would you consider yourself a multimedia artist? If not, how do you classify yourself?

I think lately I have been thinking about my work fitting into New Genres. Which as a medium it is pretty vague. The idea can take any form, whatever is right for that particular idea, that’s what I really want to play with. I think I work best in a more project based art practice. When people ask me what I do, I usually say I make drawings or books. It’s sort of hard to explain, it’s more of a thing you just have to see. I would like to start to explore video and challenging the idea of what sculpture could be.

I remember a piece you did for this party in Vancouver called “Your Face is Melting Off,” it was this dripping group of fabric teardrops hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the dance floor. Really beautiful. Do you enjoy working in large formats or would you say you prefer working in smaller formats, like your books for instance?

That was so long ago! My friend Andrew just threw all these parties, he would have me do something for the space to make it more interesting. So there was no real boundaries, I could do whatever I wanted. I was making these fabric sculptures because I had a studio space on hastings, there was more space to make that kind of larger work. I did another fabric sculpture for this show in Philadelphia a couple of years ago. The thing about those larger works is that I don’t have a lot of room to put them after the show is done. At that party the work was completely ripped apart on the dance floor which was kind of an amazing event in itself. If I can I try to reuse the materials and make something else. Like this stack of Vogue Magazines I turned into a new work. Maybe I will make some more larger sculptures later when I have more space. Going smaller I just finished a miniaturization of my old books that sit on a tiny glass shelf. That work was really fun to figure out how to produce that tiny, like how do you bind books that small and also thinking about making a tiny archive.

What music are you listening to right now?

It fluctuates between the some of most cheesy hip hop, a little bit of old soul and a lot of classic rock.

What books are you reading right now?

I’ve been researching a new project and so I’ve been sort of collecting a whole bunch of self-help books from the seventies. It’s funny to read them because the way they write is all this book will really change your life, but how do they know that? But before that I got Dave Hickey’s Invisible Dragon since it was out of print for a long time. Before that I got this really interesting biography on Duchamp out of the NYPL.

Top five female influences in your life?

Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Annette Messager. And my two favorite Aunts Janice was a puppeteer and Aunt Barbara who used to work as an animator.

Are you an introvert or extrovert?

Definitely introverted, sometimes people think I’m standoffish but I’m really just shy. I used to have my brother order for me in restaurants when I was younger.

What can we expect to see from you next?

More new projects, but I can’t reveal too much just yet.

For more information on Robin Cameron, check out her website at www.rocamm.com

You can also purchase her work at the Mastermind shop www.mmastermind.com/

UNTAGGED

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Back Issue, Featured Artist, Features, Issue 4. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.