Robert Boynes

His technique involves transferring photographic images to large silk screens and dragging paint through the mesh onto canvas. Boynes thus has control in the manipulation of colour, density and translucency of the images. This process results in still moments that magnify and investigate everyday observable reality. The anonymous figures are juxtaposed with text and layering of saturated, contrasting colours, appearing objectified and ghostly.

The private and the public become blurred with in these works as photography merges with a painterly memory. Works embody a filmic quality, the multi-panelled paintings signify fragmented narratives and enquire into perceptions of time and space. He acknowledges the inevitability of the narrative inherent in all painting, where a picture is a single selection from an infinite range of possible configurations of elements in time and space. Robert has held more than fifty solo exhibitions. Particularly notable among his more recent shows are “CCTV”, The Depot Gallery, Sydney (2009); True Fictions, Canberra Museum and Gallery (2005), Ten year survey of works in the USA , Austral Gallery, St Louis, United States (1999); Paintings 1979 – 1995, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne (1995); Urban Simulations, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne (1995); and 3 Decades – Survey, Nolan Gallery, Canberra (and touring) (1995).

Robert has also participated in several group exhibitions, including the Permanent Visions, Canberra Museum & Gallery (2003); the Arthur Guy Memorial Art Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria (2005/07); Interesting Times, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2005); Tales of the Unexpected, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2002); and Fieldwork: Contemporary Australian Art in the NGV 1968 -2002, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2002). His work is widely acclaimed and features in all major Australian state, regional and university galleries throughout Australia.