Robin Peck
Crania

Crania brings together a selection of sculptures from Robin Peck’s on-going series of the same title, a project now comprised of over sixty individual pieces. Recalling in scale and shape one of nature’s most basic volumes—the cranium—these works evolve out of a highly personal dialogue with the mundane, yet provocative and sometimes incompatible stuff the artist engages with in his daily studio activity. A single sculpture, for example, might contain a complete collection of such disparate materials as sandstone, plaster, aluminum, burlap, quartz, Hydrocal, rubber, Plexiglas, then more plaster, before being finished with a luminous patina of shellac and carnauba wax. Often working on several sculptures at the same time, he joins, hammers, and rasps his materials into the right form, while other attempts are discarded or temporarily put aside for future consideration. The cerebral rigour of Peck’s process reflects his roots in minimalism and conceptual art, while his insistence on the value of making reminds us that the body is truly our fundamental means of knowledge and discovery. Each unique sculpture tells a story about the artist’s process and presence, and assumes a poignant vulnerability in our seemingly dystopic, post-industrial present.