Artwork Description
Walter Robinson – Axis Mundi
Dimensions: 113 x 18 x 19″ finished size
Year: 2018
Medium: wood, leather, found objects
This tower is made of wooden oil barrels reaching skyward to terminate in a golden flame, an idealized version of a more dangerous and destructive oil flare. The tower sits on a primitive rendition of an electric chair. Traditionally, an axis mundi connected earth to the heavenly realm. This piece alludes ironically instead to civilization strapped into energy dependence that will eventually render the earth unlivable.
About his work Walter says, “Through my work, I look at the ways that humanity can work against its own best interests. The studio offers me a laboratory for processing the cultural and political issues we’re confronting, using satire, irony and sympathy in equal parts. Slowly crafting and assembling pieces allows me to channel my emotional responses into visual and physical metaphors. For me, the job of being an artist involves drawing connections between disparate and unlikely parts. In the process, I search for antidotes for human moral failure, making mistakes but ultimately finding balance and resolution. Creation is a natural process; when all other human forms of vanity and arrogance fail us, to quote Walt Whitman, ‘Nature remains.’”
Walter Robinson’s works have been featured in numerous museum exhibitions and are held in choice museum collections. Among these museums are the Crocker Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; San Jose Museum of Art; Sheldon Museum of Art; Chaney Family Collection; diRosa Preserve; Nevada Museum of Art; Djerassi Foundation; New Mexico Museum of Art; Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe.