BIOGRAPHY
Self-taught artist Charlie Robb is known for his vibrant abstract expressionist paintings that distort and challenge perceptions of colour and space. Born in 1995 in Preston, Lancashire, Robb grew up in Preston, Lancashire, before attending Cambridge University where he graduated a BA in Classics, 2016. Robb now lives and works in London.
Through accomplished draughtsmanship, Charlie Robb interplays layers of saturated colour to capture a hidden depth that provokes our imagination, creating an exciting and endlessly fascinating visual experience. These paintings display a truly accomplished palette, exuding atmosphere through charged flashes that harmonise with soft mists of fluid impasto texture.
Robb's work has been exhibited around the world, and has built a community of loyal and scorning collectors. Robb is also and award-winning film director and screenwriter, whose debut feature film “Loner” had its world premiere at Raindance Film Festival in 2025.
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"Robb goes beyond his barriers in a self-critical and reflexive approach to his artworks, giving a sense of linking ideas- sometimes synesthetic, sometimes political, always poetical."
Gus Moura de Almeida, Art Critic & Historian, Sao Paulo.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a self-taught artist I began my painting career in 2017, creating abstract paintings from my kitchen floor much to the stretched patience of my flatmates. I was struggling with depression, and painting taught me to channel and direct feelings which could only be explained through colour, and the language of painting.
Since then, after years of experimenting and learning in my studio, I paint emotional and situational moments, inspired by nature, memory and the cosmos.
I am interested in exploring emotional stories from the smallest moment on the street to an ageless nebula in a distant galaxy. I create the work that matters to me, and am humbled by the way my emotional interrogation of a subject resonates uniquely with others. I like to paint with a sense of humour, as I think painting is an inherently absurd language- it’s ineffable, playful and can toy with our perception.
I paint with a passionate curiosity about the inherent materiality of paint, its texture an elasticity, as well as the hidden meanings within colour, and the interplay between between structure and chaos. I am always keen to experiment and push the boundaries of my own style, which keeps evolving.
Whether it is my film work or a painting, I am grateful that my work can stir emotions and create new connections between the viewer and the world around them. It is important to me to think sustainably about my practice, being resourceful and using what materials and tools I have around me. And, always, to never lose sight of fun in my studio- which is then instiled in the work.