Artist Spotlight

Robin Hill

Name: Robin Hill

City: Nottingham

Birthplace: England

Artistic Medium Photography/sometimes mixed with poetry and music

How did you get started?
Taking pictures of babies in the East end of London in supermarkets and department stores.

Who or what are your influences
My main influences have been great musicians and songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Sting, Miles Davis, Paul Simon and Pink Floyd. In the visual arts I like Vassily Kandinsky, Richard Serra )in particular his sculpture ‘Vortex’ at the modern in Fort Worth. I like the photo journalists George Roger and don McCullin, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Architects: Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Eero Saarinen, Morris Lapidus and Santiago Calatrava, as well as the Megalthic builders of Stonehenge. Teri D’Amico and Randall Robinson who coined the term ‘MiMo’ and introduced me to a love of Architecture.

What inspires your work?
Architecture posing as frozen music.

How does Miami/South Florida influence your work?
The Architecture from the 50’s and the 60’s has been a huge influence. I love capturing the optimism and adventurousness of the era. Photography and Architecture both depend on Light and shadow for dramatic effect and the light here in South Florida is so wonderful it really helps this relationship.

How would you describe your work?
Spontaneous, colorful with a strong sense of geometry.

What has been the most unusual reaction to your work from the public?
The collective ‘WOW’ of 800 people who attended the opening night at the’ Going, Going, Gone?’ exhibition at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale in July of 2005 where 41 of my photographs were on display. During one of my shows the great MiMo architect, Norman Giller came up to me and said ‘ I’ve never seen my building from that angle before, thank you for showing me a new way to appreciate my own Architecture’

What would you like to achieve as an artist?
Ah the eternal question! And the eternal answer ‘I don’t know’…just kidding that was actually what Charles Bukowski who wrote for the movie ‘Barfly’. I love the mystery of life and the way that Art can shine a light into dark places. If there’s some kind of ‘achievement’ in finding a greater sense of self awareness through art then that’s what I’m interested in. Having said that its been very intriguing to see how photography can have a powerful affect on people’s perception and I would hope to be responsible in that regard because photography can be a very destructive or constructive weapon. I’d like to think that when my photos end up in magazines or books or in films that they have a positive affect on the viewer.

Upcoming shows:
May 13^th to June 7^th: ‘Summer in Miami’ at the the Lurie Fine Art Galleries…3900 NE 1^st Avenue in the Design District.

Monday May 22^nd on Channel 2 at 7.30 pm I will be hosting the TV show ;’State of the Arts’

Where is your work available?
On my website at miamiphotographer.com
Also through Seth Jason Beitler
And at the Lurie Fine Art Gallery