Robert Dunt

Biography

Robert Dunt is London based artist who graduated from City & Guilds of London Art School (2004) with First Class honours. His painting, prints and installations are inspired by music and explore the use of colour in a contemporary context. His practice has a rebel ethic that distorts art traditions in order to create surprising and original works. His paintings are notable for their ‘Distortion Forms’ - black and white shapes that work as a visual metaphor for the sound of noise, distortion and feedback.

He has exhibited nationally and internationally. His Solo Shows include: The Distortion Form Paintings at LMP, London, (2017) Open House, London (2017) - Madonnas and Housemasters, Charterhouse School (2015), Break on Through, Waterloo Gallery (2004) and I Wanna Trip You Up, Covent Garden (2004). 

Selected group exhibitions include Amalgamation, The Cello Factory, (2019), Defining Structure, The Cello Factory (2018), LAPADA Arts and Antiques Fair, (2018), OC Art Society Biennial Exhibition (2017 and 2015),  ArtTop10 Presents…, The Menier Gallery, (2014), Print Jam 2014 (2014), Alien Beauty: Alien Freedom, Vyner Street (2010); Fun House, The Empire, Bethnal Green (2007), Circus, The Empire Bethnal Green, (2006),  Type 36, The Type Museum (2003).

He has been selected for the ING Discerning Eye, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, NEAC, and the Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition. He featured in a TV advert for TD Trading airing on Sky News. His work is held in numerous private collections. He is the Founder of the art review website ArtTop10.com.

See Robert’s Lockdown Interview here -

About this work

This is one of Robert Dunt's "Distortion Form" paintings. These paintings are inspired by music, and in particular the band the Jesus and Mary Chain. Robert was influenced by paintings that explored colour such as the works by Monet, Matisse and Jackson Pollock. But he did not just want to recreate these paintings and so began looking at a way of using colour in a more contemporary context.

The Jesus and Mary Chain wrote pretty "Beach Boys" like pop songs but then covered them with noise and distortion and feedback. In a similar fashion Robert painted ‘pretty’ colourful paintings and then covered them with black and white "Distortion Forms", a visual metaphor for the noise and distortion used by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Though inspired by music these paintings are firmly rooted in the visual, and work on making original colour combinations. The paintings also reference the act of seeing.

The title refers to the fact that the painting is inspired by music. and refers to a David Hockney book Robert always liked when he was a child which was called That's The Way I See It and had a broken up, cubist, type of painting of Hockney on the cover.