Robin Williams

Youth fascinates me. I suppose I am not that old yet, nevertheless I feel the youthful bliss seeping out of every pore. I have lost my sense of inquisitivity - the frivolity and vigour that I did not even realise I possessed nary a few years ago. The burdens of adulthood are certainly beginning to weight me down. Now, looking at these paintings by Robin Williams harkens back to simpler times - days with ample time and freedom to pursue activities of a puerile and rambunctious nature…

Childhood as a subject is a good metaphor for adulthood. Most of the kids I paint are composites. They are bits of me, found images, my family, and people I know. They are children but they are also objects, or symbols. Above all they are paint. Children don’t have the agency to commission their own portrait or have a concept of their own mortality. So I was making these hypothetical portraits of children that I imagined to be commissioned by their “caretakers”… us collectively… or maybe me.

Gold Star is [of] a boy alone, naked, with no decorations, posing next to a gold foil star balloon. I wanted the balloon to have the presence of a sibling in the picture. The decoration (the balloon) and the child were meant to be equals. The dynamic of the relationship between the figure and the object changed. I wanted the figure to appear to realize he was nothing but paint.

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect in Williams’ work is the “pastiche” concept she works with. In doing so, her works convey universal childhood experiences. I come from a different background, with very different cultural values, yet I somehow see fragments of my youth in these paintings, thrown into a kaleidoscope, bursting with vivacity…

Text and images kindly permitted to be republished on this blog by the artist herself. Please visit Robin Williams’ website to view more of her work.