welcome to the jungle
Robin crofut-brittingham’s art is wild and a little bit weird.
Hello! What kind of art do you make? I primarily make large-scale works on paper. All my work ties back to my interest in nature and mythology. I’m inspired by naturalist illustration, science fiction, current events and my own personal history. In my paintings, I create non-linear visual narratives that reflect questions I have about how humans interact with the natural world.
What are your favourite mediums to work with? I work primarily with watercolour or gouache, but occasionally will experiment with gold leaf or inks. I love the way watercolour reacts to the environment it’s used in – it will respond differently to paper on a humid day when it’s heavier and moister. You’re always negotiating the level of control you have with the paint and the paper. I also like that you can’t go backwards with watercolour. Someone recently told me that painting with watercolour is like playing chess: you have to always be looking for the next move.
Talk us through your creative process. Research is a vital component of my practice – I spend a long time looking over books of scientific drawings and maps and stories. I like to learn from and connect to the elements I add to the work. I’ll often get an idea for a new piece just from one line of text I’ve scribbled down. Usually, I don’t do much sketching but just start somewhere on the page and let the image grow from there. I have a vague idea of where I want to go, but it always changes as I’m making it.
There’s an incredible amount of detail in your paintings! Do they take a long time to create? My paintings take weeks or even months to complete. When people see them in person, they’re often surprised by how large they are. In our modern world,
so many things are designed and reproduced quickly and in huge quantities for consumption. Making my paintings slowly and deliberately by hand is a way of negotiating my discomfort with contemporary mass consumerism. It’s a bit of a rebellion to create something that’s so inefficient and can’t be quickly consumed.
How long will you sit with a piece before it’s finished? I often work steadily right up until the end, but I’ve had pieces sit ‘finished’ for a year, until I suddenly have an idea and make some big change to them. This year, I moved my studio into my home, so I’m living among many of my works. This makes me consider them differently and think of all the things I’d like to change about them, which can be both good and bad.
Why have you included manmade elements like plastic bags, balloons and carved meat in your paintings? I read a lot of apocalyptic science fiction, where humans have been wiped out or populations decreased by various threats or natural disasters. I started to think what the world would look like if nature took it back from humans. I imagined a lush, wild jungle where there were just a few human elements left as artefacts of our existence.
What puts you in the mood to create? The amount of hours that go into a single painting of mine requires me to work no matter what my mood! Inspiration is important, but I find discipline is much more important. The best is when inspiration and discipline coalesce, and all I want to do is be in my studio.
Where can we see more of your work? robincb.com or on
Instagram at @robincrofutbrittingham.