Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode was born in 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa. He currently lives and works in Berlin. In 1998 he obtained a degree of Fine Arts at the Witwaterstrand Technikon in Johannesburg, followed by a postgraduate degree in 2000 at the South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Art in Johannesburg. From the very beginning of his career, Rhode works mainly with easy accessible materials such as charcoal, chalk and paint. That allows him to create performances during which he interacts with the objects he draws in public spaces and on different media, such as walls, playgrounds or roads. Starting from the performance he creates photo slideshows and digital animations that permit him to perpetuate the work of an ephemeral nature. He transforms two-dimensional forms (figurative or abstract) in elements of storytelling, imagined presences with which he interacts physically. The viewer is invited to penetrate the imagination of the artist. Rhode’s work is characterised by a strong multidisciplinary approach and constant reflection on the relationship that the man maintains with the desire, the play and the imagination. The current use of monochrome black and white, as well as allowing a quick job, permits the artist to reduce its aesthetic to its essence. Through his artistic production, Robin Rhode likes to suggest a social reflection, sometimes in a provocative way, and does not hesitate to ask the audience to participate actively, as it was the case during his performance Skipping Rope in 2005 at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, on occasion of the exhibition I Still Believe in Miracles / Drawing Space (part I), when he invited the audience to interact with imaginary rope.