Artist Statement

Stay Calm. Stay Positive. Think Creatively.

I try to remember that.

***

Albert Camus, the French philosopher, said this:

‘A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.’

This resonates very deeply with me. I think most of my life I’ve been seeking to rediscover those things that first opened my heart. In my creative journey as a painter, over and over again I wondered why I was drawn to such seemingly insignificant items in the landscape: haybales, a tree, a mailbox. In each painting, I rediscover a deep emotional connection to the seasons, the clouds, the woods, and the everyday sacred things that make up my life. Each time I pick up a brush, I honor those things in whose presence my heart first opened.

You know that feeling when you get to a place and can take a deep breath and just be?   That's what I love about living out here.  Rural life is messy, intense, over the top, contradictory and deeply rewarding - but out here, you have the space to stop, take a deep breath and take it all in: the whistle of the train on the trestle a couple miles away; the feeling the sun on your back or rain on your face; the smell of wild grape, or roses, or honeysuckle, or cedar blooming; the sound of the breeze ruffling the tree tops while the creek trips over the rocks; the peepers, wood frogs, tree frogs or green frogs announcing the change in the seasons; the butterflies dancing over the road; the wildflowers everywhere, everywhere; birds wheeling in the sky, sitting on the power lines and calling, calling, calling from the woods, the fields, the fencerows. It’s there just waiting for you to notice.

Every time I pick up a brush, I try to bring all of that to life on the paper.  My current work is focused in two broad areas:  rural spaces and rural structures.  Luckily, our local landscapes combine the two almost everywhere you look.  I use two primary strategies as I work. First, I often use bold and unusual colors to encourage the viewer to look again at the everyday things around us, and second, I use simplified shapes and lines to emphasize the patterns and rhythms of rural life.

Spaces:  When I was in college in Utah, I saw a poster for a dance performance entitled ‘Desert Landscapes’.   The write-up in the newspaper had a typo and called it ‘Desert Landspaces’.   I loved the juxtaposition of the terms. Landscapes are land-spaces that interact with structures, light and atmosphere.  An artist is a magician, creating the illusion of that light, space and atmosphere on a piece of paper - and if done well, she communicates the feeling of a place as well as the look. 

Structures:  Rural life is unruly.  We try to hide some of that in our barns, sheds, and coops.  They are full of dirt, weeds, stuff we need now, old-stuff-we-might-need-someday and old-stuff-no-one-will-ever-need-again-thank-heaven.   I love every sagging roof, crooked post, and rust stain because it reminds me of the families who lived here, built it and used it. My great-grandmother was one of these bad-ass farm wives. She was a good neighbor who went to church on Sunday, came home, went to the chicken coop, caught a chicken and then served it up for dinner a couple of hours later. I paint these things because I love her and all the others who serve their families and communities long and well.  This is how I tell their stories.

Bio

Robin Edmundson paints everyday rural things in new ways with bold & unusual colors, using simplified shapes & lines to emphasize the patterns and rhythms of rural life.  

Robin grew up in northern Indiana in an old farmhouse on a property full of old farm buildings.   Her early goal was to learn as many languages as she could.  In college, she quickly found Linguistics and earned a Ph.D. in that field.  She taught in various capacities at Indiana University for twenty-seven years.  Always looking for creative outlets to balance her academic life, she learned to dye and weave and became an award winning fiber artist.

In 2011 she began blogging about rural life in southern Indiana.  It took her a while to realize that she was still searching for a language that could express some things she wanted to say about life in rural southern Indiana.  Imagine her surprise when she finally figured out that the language she was looking for was one of paint, color and line instead of words.  Nothing makes her happier than to communicate through her paintings her deep love and respect for the unruly places and people of rural Indiana. 

Select Shows,

Exhibits & Awards

• 2023 August 3 - September 29. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson. The Vault at Gallery Mortgage. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2021 September 25 - November 7. Small group show. Falling for Art: Hoosier Salon Gallery. New Harmony, Indiana.

• 2021 August 3 - September 28. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Pause. The Vault at Gallery Mortgage. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2020 August - October. ‘Midwinter Sky & Birds’: Accepted, Hoosier Salon Exhibition, Indiana State Museum. Indianapolis, Indiana.

• 2020 August - September. 'Bluebell Wood - Just starting to Bloom': Accepted, Watercolor Society of Indiana, Juried Member Exhibit, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Indianapolis, Indiana. Juror: Keiko Tanabe

• 2020 July 3-28. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Ramble. The Venue. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2019 November 21 - January 5, 2020. Solo Exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Winter. Window display, Thomas Gallery. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2019 October 1 - December 2. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Not Far Afield. The Vault at Gallery Mortgage. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2019 ‘Turquoise Barn & Bales’: Accepted, AquaVenture, Kentucky Watercolor Society, Juried Member Exhibit.

• 2019 June 14 - July 15. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Rurification. The Gaslight Art Colony. Marshall, Illinois.

• 2019 March 22 - April 20. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: Field & Farm. Lawrence County Art Association. Wiley Art Center. Bedford, Indiana.

• 2018 'Linton Barn', Award: Merit Award, Good Ole Summertime, Hoosier Salon Juried Member Competition.

• 2018 August 30 - December 20. Group show. Robin Edmundson, Michelle Irwin, Kari Rajkumar & Anna Lee Chalos-McLeese: Through Her Eyes. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Terre Haute, Indiana.

• 2018 ‘Bean Harvest’, Award: First Place, Landscapes. Midsummer Art Competition, Lawrence County Art Association.

• 2018 'Winter White': Accepted, Hoosier Women Artists: Works selected for the statehouse. Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art. Lafayette, Indiana.

• 2017 October 8 - December 3. 'White Roofs, December': Accepted, Watercolor Society of Indiana, Juried Member Exhibit, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Indianapolis, Indiana. Juror: Barbara Nechis

• 2017 August 4 - September 29. Solo exhibit. Robin Edmundson: This is my Indiana. The Vault at Gallery Mortgage. Bloomington, Indiana.

• 2017-18 'Winter White': Accepted, Hoosier Women Artists: Works selected for the statehouse. Indiana Statehouse. Indianapolis, Indiana.

• 2016 'Clouds over May Pasture': Accepted, Watercolor Society of Indiana, Juried Member Exhibit, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Indianapolis, Indiana. Juror: John Salminen

• 2016 'T C Steele's Studio', Award: Honorable Mention, September Plein Air Event, T C Steele State Memorial. Brown County, Indiana.

Studio

This is where all the magic happens.  There’s a lot of action at the birdfeeders.  It's common to have eight hummingbirds arguing over the feeder by the window and this year we had a pair of bluebirds in the little birdhouse on the left. The topiary by the door is a 30 year old bay tree that I grew from a tiny start.  It's very happy spending the summers outside and the winters inside.  If you'd like to come visit my studio so you can see all this gloriousness in person, I'd love to make that happen.  Email me.