ABOUT
Artist, KATYA ROBIN, mostly paints and draws. She also makes pigments, editions of objects, and artist’s books. Her work is based on in situ sketching with wider research. Katya’s drawings have an intuitive and incisive line, she combines her painterly technique with conceptual associations. Recently she has focussed on domestic work using specific palettes, materials and methods that relate to the subject.
Her other projects respond to public services and amenities including suburban cemeteries, water services, coins, memorials and a neglected underpass development. Recent images of domestic workers were selected for PAINT2019, and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.
Katya went to St Martin’s School of Art, Sheffield Hallam and Turps Correspondence Course, and is now based in Sheffield, England. Her artist’s books and editions are held in noted collections . She is also a co-curator of the Prosaic strand of exhibitions of small paintings by contemporary artists.
EXHIBITIONS
Recent Group Shows
2021
In Absentia with CohortArt, (online)
2019-20
Prosaic: Generous, Globe Arts Studio near Huddersfield.
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019 exhibition tour, London, Salisbury Museum, De Montfort University Gallery
Prosaic Mosaic, Bloc Projects, Sheffield. (co-curator)
PS Mirabel PAINT2019 Prize Exhibition 2019, Manchester
MICRO, Air Gallery, Altrincham
Prosaic, Coterie Gallery, Rotherham
2016-18
Loss and Lucidity, curated by Diana Ali, Santa Ana, California, USA.
Kippenberger Challenge (7.45 Books), touring: Jan van Eyck Academie Maastricht; Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Library, de Appel Library & Archive, Amsterdam.
Shoddy, Leeds, and Batley
COIN/ICON Penny Exchange, Museums Sheffiel
Midlands Open, Tarpey Gallery, Derby
Unity, Yorkshire Arts Space, Sheffield
The Floating Library, Minnesota, and 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 Prize, ArtLacuna Gallery, London
Out of Context, Bank St Art, Sheffield
ACQUISITIONS by Artist’s Book Collections
USA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas J Watson Library; Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection; Yale Centre for British Art; Lafayette College; Swarthmore College; The Floating Library
UK
Oxford Brookes University Library; The Tetley, Leeds; TATE Library, Special Collections; Chelsea College of Art, Special Collections; Leeds College of Art, Special Collection
France
Centre de livres d’artiste (CdLA); Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
FUNDING / Professional Development
a-n Bursary, 2019, 2020
YVAN MicroGrant, 2019
DYCP Award, Arts Council England, 2018
Ruskin PopUp Museum, Sheffield, 2016
PolyMath, 2015-16
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.