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.

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.

As a young boy I was a collector  of many things. I had a bug collection, a stamp collection and a rock collection. Then when I was older I started collecting sad feelings and unhappy thoughts. Now I can see in my art that I am a collector of spirits. Not having academic training I rely on my intuition when taking photos for my painting and that part of not knowing keeps me looking. 

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.

More than getting a likeness in a portrait or a believable figure painting, I continue to portray a situation the subject(s) find themselves in, be it comical, emotional, characteristic, or a surprising statement of an unconcious truth.

**Fyi, Please call Rocky at (240) 257-6259 upon arrival, so that I can let you into the Warrington Building.

I have spent my career studying this unique shape. With my most recent series, I look at the landscape, the roadmap to motherhood. By creating an unfamiliar landscape and printing the photos very large, I hope for the form to be examined and, once understood, open discussion. This shape represents an area of the women's body that is surrounded by debate of ownership, degradation by toxic environments, and depravation of corporate fertility centers charging exorbitant fees for women who want to become pregnant.