Artist, KATYA ROBIN, lives and works in Sheffield, England. She studied Painting and Fine Art at
St Martin’s School of Art, 1983-6
Sheffield Hallam 2011-14
Turps Art School Correspondence Course 2018-20.
Her visceral paintings and drawings combine direct observation with conceptual underpinning.
She draws everyday scenes as social reportage, such as sketching the changing scene in the parking bay opposite her studio, or when attending hospital. These live observations are further shaped by production systems such as specific palettes, materials or methods of application that are intrinsically related to the subject. Her subjects include domestic staff at work and cleaning products. This work has been selected for PAINT2019, and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.
She also produces artist’s books and editions in response to exemplar locations including a suburban cemetery, a resevoir, and an underpass development. The sites she chooses are both specific and universal stand-ins for other similar sites thereby focussing on shared histories and associations.
She is also a co-curator of the Prosaic strand of exhibitions of small paintings by contemporary artists.
EXHIBITIONS
2021
In Absentia with CohortArt, online.
2020
Prosaic: Generous, Globe Arts Studio near Huddersfield.
2019
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019 exhibition tour, London, The Salisbury Museum, The Gallery at De Montfort University.
Prosaic Mosaic, Bloc Projects, Sheffield. (co-curator)
PS Mirabel Painting Prize Exhibition 2019, Manchester.
MICRO, Air Gallery, Altrincham UK.
Prosaic, Coterie Gallery, Rotherham UK.
2018
Loss and Lucidity, curated by Diana Ali, Santa Ana, California, USA.
The Floating Library, Minnesota.
2016
Kippenberger Challenge (7.45 Books), touring: Jan van Eyck Academie Maastricht; Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Library, de Appel Library & Archive, Amsterdam.
Shoddy, Leeds, & Batley, UK.
COIN/ICON Penny Exchange, Museums Sheffield.
Midlands Open, Tarpey Gallery, Derby.
Unity, Yorkshire Arts Space, Sheffield.
The Floating Library, Minnesota, Los Angeles.
Library Interventions: Sharon Kivland, Leeds Art College Library, Chelsea School of Art Library, London.
2013-15
Hexopolis, Pages Exhibition, Tetley, Leeds.
Kaleid2015, Printmaking in the expanded field, Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo.
The Floating Library, Minnesota.
The Reality of Small Differences, Leeds.
Engagement and Entrapment, Binyamin Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Fabricate, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield.
Living Numbers, Fringe Arts Bath
Klub Kube, LoBe, Berlin
Art: Language: Location, Cambridge.
ArtLacuna Gallery, London.
Out of Context, Bank St Art, Sheffield.
ACQUISITIONS by Artist’s Book Collections
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas J Watson Library, USA.
Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, USA.
Yale Centre for British Art, USA.
Lafayette College, USA.
Swarthmore College, USA.
The Floating Library, USA.
Oxford Brookes University Library.
The Tetley, Leeds.
TATE Library, Special Collections.
Chelsea College of Art, Special Collections.
Leeds College of Art, Special Collection.
Centre de livres d’artiste (CdLA), France.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
FUNDING
a-n Bursary, 2019, 2020
YVAN MicroGrant, 2019
DYCP Award, Arts Council England, 2018
AWARDS SHORTLISTING
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019
PAINT2019, PSMirabel
Kaleid2015, Artist’s Books Representation
ArtLacuna Prize 2013
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT inc. RESIDENCY
PolyMath
Ruskin PopUp Museum, Sheffield.
PUBLICATIONS
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019 Anita Taylor (ed), Drawing Projects UK, 2019.
Dwell Time, 2019.
Crawshaw, Gill, Shoddy Work, (essay in Ford, Sarah-Joy, Cut Cloth, PO Pub., 2017).
Clarke, Helen & Kivland, Sharon (eds), The Lost Diagrams of Walter Benjamin, Ma Bibliotèque, 2017.
Kivland, Sharon, Report on Knowledge, Ma Bibliotèque, 2014.
Smith, Rachel, Out of Context: In Response, Lulu, 2013.