Jeff Robb's 'Three Acts of Will'

I caught Jeffrey Robb's recent exhibition "Three Acts of Will" on the last day of its run at the Londonnewcastle Project Space in Shoreditch. This immense, cavernous space was apparently crammed to bursting at the Private Views but I am glad I managed to see it in the company of Jeff alone. The exhibition has a spiritual quality to it that makes one speak in lowered tones and the combination of intense light and colours in Jeff's work with the extraordinary audio composed by John Was has an almost church like feel to it.  If I had had more than an hour on the meter I could happily have spent all afternoon there, lost in blissful reverie.

The first room you enter, 'Genius Loci', contains a group of inverted pyramid shapes, like giant icicles suspended in the air. Created from lenticular panels, the imagery appears both within and outside the structures and is animated by an ever-changing video projected from tiny units in the gallery ceiling, taking the temperature from icy black and white to satanic red, and introducing a kaleidoscope of moving colours that also plays on the gallery floor to mesmerising effect.

In the second room, 'Liminal States', the works are more traditionally square in format but double sided and lit from all around with a strip of LEDs. The figurative imagery shifts shape from angelic to demonic. Glowing squares of light suspended in the void. 

In the third room, 'Coming into Being' banner-like constructions animate images of Jeff's son, drawn by his artist father, Tom Robb, the child's voice incorporated into the soundtrack.

Of course none of this is actually holographic despite what all the media insist on calling it - not that I'm particularly bothered. Jeff's "holographic sculptures" are just what people want holograms to be and without doubt are pushing the boundaries of anything I have ever seen done with lenticulars. If holography has yet to really make an impact in the realms of Fine Art, and lenticulars are still dogged by that 'winky postcard' association, this exhibition should have permanently disabled the 'naff-ometer' of anyone who managed to see it.  It just goes to show that it isn't the medium that is responsible for the bad reputation it sometimes has, just the occasional dodgy practitioner, which Jeff Robb certainly isn't.

To see some video of the installation and read an interview with Jeff, follow this link to wonderlandmagazine.com

and explore some of Jeff's back catalogue on his own website and in my personal collection.