Robert Williamson

Artist’s Statement
My works on paper reflect my interest in both music and visual art. My (distant) background in percussion introduced me to the written language of musical notation and the reading of it. When I listen to music that I enjoy, I often imagine a visual representation of what I’m hearing while at the same time holding an awareness of the physical manipulations that the artists did to create the music. Color and symbols are often key parts of the visualization. I utilize a mix of techniques that play well with the paper support - watercolor, acrylics, pencil, and collage.

2025 Summer installation:
Small, social and kinetic - bees and the exquisite constructions that they build together.
Squat, solitary and static - a stump decaying in the understory of a second growth forest.
One seems to exemplify an organizing principle driven by an innate logic. The other a slow process of random disassembly and eventual dissolution. Both leave in their wake nutrients for regeneration.
Recent pieces of mine employ these contrasting subjects as recurring motifs as I visually explore the dynamism of the natural world.
Exhibitions

Second Growth Stand 2021- a wall mounted permanent sculptural installation located at the Lodge at St Edward State Park check in counter is made from painted wood scraps against a matte black plywood backing. Small brass brad heads add subtle sparkle in the light. A series of stumps and tree bases were designed for this site specific installation with environmental overtones and a nod to the surrounding park. Palette of dark greens with bright chartreuse accents (for the moss and lichens), with some ruddy Venetian red oxide for the wet rotting cedar wood. A dramatic black swath makes a vertical path, creating visual hollows, an indication of the old springboard notch on the centerpiece belies the age of the stump, when the tree was felled in the early days of logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Hive Mind 2023 - this exhibition I have created a salvage wood sculptural centerpiece along with my hive inspired paintings. The cellular structure of various bees and wasps hives, as well as the social structure of their colonies, has been a long-time fascination. The appearance of the orderly and architectural comb structure that bees create gives their hives a dense, almost urban feeling that provides a stark contrast to dwellings of most of the other creatures in the forest around them. City dwellers can all relate to their world.
Website
www.williamsonstudioseattle.com