Freddie Robins

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  • The Saddest Sight of All

    Saddest Sight
    Saddest Sight
    Saddest Sight

    Installed at PM Gallery & House, London
    2008
    Antique mirror, mixed media

    Last year my parents-in-law found a young, female woodpecker lying dead in an empty bedroom. It had pecked at it’s own reflection and at the wood veneer of the dressing table mirror, dying from exhaustion and hunger. Some years earlier a young woman had fallen from the roof terrace of the flat above ours, landing in front of our basement door. She died on impact.

    The form of this piece is also a tribute to the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter (1835 – 1918). Potter produced many taxidermy tableaux including the infamous “Kitten’s Wedding” and “Who Killed Cock Robin?” As a child my parents often took me to his museum, in Brighton, and then Arundel, East Sussex. His museum has had an enormous influence on me. It is one of my most powerful childhood memories. The museum was eventually bought by Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. In 2003 the entire contents of the museum were auctioned. I now own his two-headed lamb from 1887.

    01 May 2008

  • The Perfect

    Research project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Royal College of Art Development Fund (RCA).

    The Perfect
    The Perfect
    The Perfect
    The Perfect
    The Perfect
    The Perfect

    The Perfect – Alex, 2007
    machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn 

    580 × 920 mm

    The Perfect – Eddie, 2007
    
machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

    450 × 240 mm


    In the collection of Spring Studios, London

    The Perfect – Billy
, 2007

    machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn
    
450 × 240 mm
    In the collection of Spring Studios, London

    The Perfect – Tilak, 
2007
    
machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

    1400 × 1050 mm


    The Perfect, 2007
    machine knitted wool 

    Dimensions variable 


    Installed at KODE – kunstmuseene i Bergen, Norway

    The Perfect Skins, 2007
    machine knitted wool, metal rail
    1800 × 800 × 100 mm

    “It’s not perfect, but who cares?” Well I do. I enjoy imperfection in you and yours but not in me and mine. I am very attracted to the imperfections, failings, and roughness of the material world. I enjoy the evidence of human hands, the inevitable wear and repair of objects. I love the obviously hand-made. But I suffer from being a perfectionist.  

    This body of work deals with the constant drive for perfection. It is made using technology that was developed to achieve perfection. Technology developed for mass production to make garment multiples that are exactly the same as each other: garments that do not require any hand finishing, garments whose manufacture does not produce any waste, garments whose production does not require the human touch. Garments that are, in fact, perfect.

    I have produced my knitted multiples through the use of a Shima Seiki WholeGarment® machine (a computerised, automated, industrial V-bed flat machine, which is capable of knitting a three-dimensional seamless garment). These multiples take the form of life size, three-dimensional human bodies. I have combined them in a variety of different ways to create large-scale knitted sculptures and installations.
    Perfectionism is associated with good craftsmanship, something to aspire to. I aim for perfection in all aspects of my life, my work and myself. It can be very debilitating and exhausting and it is of course, unachievable.

    Photography: Damian Chapman, Douglas Atfield, Ben Coode-Adams

    02 May 2007

  • Feel the Fear and Make it Anyway

    Feel the Fear and Make it Anyway
    Feel the Fear and Make it Anyway
    Feel the Fear and Make it Anyway

    2007
    Machine knitted yarn, cellophane, buttons

    1300 × 560 mm

    Installation around pillar in Wintry, Lounge/Monika Bobinska, London
    2 November – 9 December 2007


    Exhibiting alongside: Su Blackwell, Debbie Booth, Andrew Hladky, Sophie Horton, Adam King, Gavin Maughfling, Lucinda Oestreicher, Laure Prouvost, Greg Rook, Kate Street and Gillian Wylde

    01 May 2007

  • Weren’t you listening? I told you craft kills

    Weren’t you listening? I told you craft kills

    2007
    wool, plastic cone, knitting needles

    650 × 200 × 200 mm – 400 × 180 × 130 mm

    01 May 2007

  • It Sucks

    It Sucks
    It Sucks

    2005
    Hand knitted 2-ply Shetland Lace Yarn 

    1000 × 1000 mm
    Knitted by Audrey Yates
    Commissioned by Pump House Gallery, London

    Installation in Ceremony, Pump House Gallery, London 17 August – 9 October 2005. Shown alongside Serena Korda’s Love, Honour and Obey, 2004

    My work often employs humour and text to communicate messages. I like to play on words to make visual suggestions. In this commissioned piece, “It Sucks”, I subvert the traditional hand knitted Shetland Lace christening shawl to communicate the very mixed feelings that I had upon the birth of my daughter and becoming a new mother.

    Photography: Colin Guilemet

    01 May 2005

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