Robbie Rowlands is an Australian visual artist who is interested in sculptural work. He bases his work on things that exist at the fringes of our awareness, utilitarian objects such as lampposts, desks, chairs and rundown buildings and houses.
He graduated from The Victorian College of the Arts in 1999. Part of this study was based at Pratt Institute, New York after, his first solo exhibition found came out of this work. His work looks closely at the everyday objects around us, he questions their nature, their stability. Working both familiar and found materials, Rowlands cuts into and manipulates the recognisable, peeling back one form to reveal another, reflecting upon the passage of time and what lies beneath the surface of our familiar world.
The Offering is bases on a 105-year-old church that was scheduled to be demolished. The church was in the process of been taken apart when Robbie Rowlands obtained permission to use it to create his form of art. The church was not always this ragged looking. It was once a site for worship and community gathering. Rowland allowed the building to show what it still had to offer as a site for exploring themes of memory and history, revelling the formal and aesthetic potential contained within the building itself.
The challenge he faced was to evoke the rich history of the building and single its fate within the context of artistic practice. Robbie Rowlands cut into the walls and floor, peeling and stripping back the buildings basic materials in a process to create his art. The sculptural forms created are aesthetically rich, and the use of materials derived from the essence of the building offer a tribute of some kind by making us newly aware of the buildings past splendid beauty.
All in all, Robbie Rowlands truly demonstrates that art can be of many forms.
