I make colorful mixed media paintings. The subjects vary from urban scenes to landscapes. I try to show a reality that might not be obvious but uses a combination of elements that are surprising.

I want to make an emotional connection with the viewer that will captivate your imagination, draw you into the story, and be memorable.

After many years as a scriptwriter and director, I began channeling my creative energies into my love of sculpture.  In doing so, I drew from my own subconscious and my interest in the worlds of archetypes, myths, and rituals to create both abstract and figurative pieces.  My figurative sculptures are not based on models, photographs, or actual persons.  Instead, like my abstract work, they arise from memory, imagination, my inner world, and a spontaneous interaction with a variety of materials. 

My primary materials are terra cotta and cement, although I frequently employ wood and various metals as well.  The forms created from these materials are typically covered with a rich textual surface that is often aged or distressed to convey an emotion and a connection that transcend time and culture to bring artist and viewer into a shared inner space.

My work has been described as elegant, yet also earthy and powerful.  It is imbued with a mythic, numinous, and archetypal awareness that comes directly from my process of creation.  My psychological and emotional state while I’m working are also strongly reflected in the sculptures.  Some express a calm, almost beatific sensibility.  Others display extreme disturbance and anguish.  Generally, it is only upon completion of an individual sculpture, or often a series of sculptures, that I’m able to tease out the meaning and significance for me personally.

However, regardless of the emotional impact, I seek a connection with the viewer.  Whether figurative or abstract, my ultimate goal is to have the viewer feel a sense of familiarity with the work...a sense of knowing, of understanding.  I believe this feeling of déjà vu arises from both a collective unconscious and a mystical center we all share.

I was inspired to photograph Crustaceans after finding containers of crabs, shells and bugs in my parents garage where they had been hidden and placed in jars for the last 53 years. I photographed the Crustaceans and made beautiful prints but I needed to take things a step further. Working with my hands has always been a love of mine - particularly working with beautiful woods, since I was sixteen years old and I apprenticed a master cabinetmaker. Recently, I've combined this love of creating beautiful objects with my career as a professional commercial photographer, in creating Photographic Cubes. Each cube is hand made and these measure 2ft x 2ft and house four archival photographic prints covering four of the six surfaces of each cube. The two remainder side show the ornate wood of the cube. Hence, the cubes can be viewed from any angle with varying effect. The cubes are self contained units and can be displayed in any number of ways including stacking them upon one another. They can be made in any size and configuration. I wanted the cubes to become their own entities and combining the sculptural with the photographic without taking away from the photography but adding to it and making it something new and alive.

I am an artist, a traveler, a writer and a teacher.

I engage in the process of visually exploring and describing my experiences as a woman living in an urban culture in the 21st century.  I am a mother and grandmother and all of my experience instructs my practice.

The human figure and nature are central to my work.   I question what is familiar and find nuances buried in the layers of the everyday.

Text is an important component, and most every piece has a story or text beneath and through the work.  Building layers, sometimes placing familiar imagery in context of a new environment, the voice of my work is evident in the line and space that becomes a new language within the work.

Painting, drawing and taking photographs is a form of discovery for me.  

Bio

Robbin Milne is a California painter and studio artist.

She is associated ArtsBenicia, Oakland ProArts, San Francisco and Berkeley communities.

She has exhibited her work in the Bay Area 
during the past 15 years in solo as well as 
group shows such as the Oakland ProArts 
Annual Open Studios, Arts Benicia Auction, 
Arts Benicia Open Studios.

Robbin has also been seen in other venues 
including the Benicia Library Art Gallery, 
Orinda Art Gallery, Bedford Art Gallery, 
Sebastopol Arts Center and other venues in 
the area.  

Her work is in Bay Area private collections:  In 
Napa and the South Bay areas, including 
Filoso/Obrien of Oakland and the Heydlers of 
Danville, now in Germany.  Collectors abroad 
include Canada, France and Italy and Turkey.  

Ms. Milne received the Ralph DuCasse Award 
for Academic Excellence in Studio Arts, and 
completed her BA in Studio Art at Mills College,
Oakland California.

She was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 
1957.

She continues to offer art instruction and 
appreciation, and has worked in the National 
Institute of Arts and Disabilities with adults.

The son of a seamstress and mechanic, my art-making process continues a family history of labor through the meticulous hand-made acrylic paintings on wooden panel and ink drawings. As a first-generation middle-class American growing up in the 80's & 90's under the influence of MTV, Nickelodeon, plastic toys, candy and bold fashion – my work construct and unravel my landscape, architecture and interior spaces with flat color, line and intricate patterns.

Pushing the cannon of Chicano art beyond graffiti or large-scale murals, these works also investigate identity through the lens of such a richly traditional infrastructure. My work, create a new kind of iconography, symbolically operating on the micro level of the personal, able to be inserted into a larger historical and cultural dialogue.

Like clocking in and out of my very own studio sweatshop, my process extends from super-controlled acrylic painting into laborious experimental ink drawings on paper, continuing an abstract investigation into line, color and pattern- an homage to my mother and reminiscent of a childhood play area in her sewing room piled with fabric swatches. The vulnerable process of creating “swatch-drawings” celebrate accidental moments and mishap when man imitates machine; one of life's lessons which forces us to make lemonade out of lemons. Through both painting and drawing my cultural and personal history is explored, questioned and celebrated.

Jeff Snell's paintings unite traditional landscapes and popular culture as vigorous abstract rhythms. Working with brush and spray, Snell uses expressive gestures that incorporate a variety of forms found in nature and elements of urban flair. The organic qualities of his subjects exist in a fantastic world, where the natural position and order of the landscape is challenged in an unruly microcosm. His paintings radiate an energy and excitement that engage the viewer and offer a glimpse of nature's inner sanctum.

In this current series, I'm investigating environments from the imagination, thinking of these as glimpses of atmospheric forces mingling with eachother. Each canvas is a window into a bit of ordered chaos where nature is continually changing and the viewer is center stage to a swirling cosmos.

In my art work, both the prints and the sculpture, I capture the flow or motion of the object. Nature is my inspiration, although I have been including portraites in my recent work. Most of my work is an abstraction of a landscape or object in a landscape.  I have also been working with making paper and using it to create sculptures and art pieces.

My work began with mixed media creations: fiber arts, mosaic tiled work, metal sculpture, and jewelry. As my art turned to painting, I evolved towards the abstract expressionism you see today. My innovative, whimsical, playful style blends the tactile depth of sculpture (using paint or wall plaster) with the rich tones of acrylics, oils, and gold leaf. Growing up in a large Italian family, my fine art and written words are influenced by the passion and expression of my heritage. I thrive on culture, fine cuisine, and travel, having spent time exploring more than 20 countries from Europe, the Caribbean and Central and South America to all parts of the US.  My heart sings the loudest in the Italian, French, and Spanish sunshine.

“Adventure lies not in the places we seek, but in the moments we create in the places we treasure.” –RMC

Painting affords me the opportunity to express my observations of the world around me. My artistic endeavors focus on a personal interpretation of the relationships I see created by subjects in their immediate environment. The content of my work incorporates primarily still life, people and nature. The visual exchanges created by a vase on a shelf in the morning sun, a Japanese maple leaf outside my door or an old man sitting beside a building in Greece can be the inspiration. I am drawn to the challenge of capturing the fleeting moment and reinterpreting it to the best of my abilities. Painting then becomes an entity unto itself. Forming my own image within the dictates of a two dimensional format, such as watercolor, presents many issues to consider- color, form, rhythm, texture and light maintain an integral part of the interplay. Every painting presents individual complexities. My intent is that the resulting piece will be a unique extension of my vision and efforts.