A glance at my wardrobe will reveal paint everywhere: even my suits sport the odd dash of yellow.  For me, painting is immersion in colour and texture, but also in smell and touch - I let my fingers do a lot of painting.  Samuel Beckett said: "To find the form that accommodates the mess, that's the task of the artist now".  I try to find form and meaning through the mess of my painting process. 

My paintings reflect the swirl of conflicting feelings we carry inside us. Most of us feel the need for points of calm and quiet as an escape from the overstimulation and complexity of contemporary society and its media.  My abstract paintings are about that tension between the rush of activity and the need for shelter from it.  Areas of calm compete with areas of intense movement.  Some also explore the contrast between the constrained hyperactivity of working life and the less engaged, but less bounded life of retirement.  I use layers of paint to articulate these conflicts.

Born Hull 1944

Education

MA in History, Oxford University 1965

Dip Town Planning, Manchester University 1967

Foundation Diploma in Fine Art, Hastings College 2007

Foundation Degree in Contemporary Fine Art, Sussex Coastal College 2011

MA in Fine Art, University of Creative Arts Canterbury 2013-15


Exhibitions

I am exhibiting in a group show at Espacio, 159 Bethnal Green Road, London 15-21 January

I have exhibited in shows at the Hastings Art Forum on nine occasions; the Tunbridge Wells Museum in 2007; the East Grinstead Gallery in 2008;  Cranbrook Library in 2009; the Langham Gallery in London and  the Battersea Art Show in 2010;  the Cranbrook Art Show in 2011; Ripley Gallery in Bromley in 2012; the Herbert Read Gallery in Canterbury in 2015; the Brewery Tap, Folkestone in 2014 and 2015; City Lit London in 2017.  Held own show at Hastings Art Forum May-June 2016.  Took part in three person show at the Creek Creative Centre Faversham in October 2017.  Participated in Open Studio with his wife Margaret, a print-maker, at his home in 2007, 2009 and 2010.  Selected in competition for solo show at A space gallery at East Sussex College in Hastings 2018. Held show with Margaret Roberts at Hastings Art Forum 2019. Selected to exhibit at the Gallery at University of Creative `Arts in Canterbury, Creek Creative in Faversham and the ‘Lockdown’ show at Hastings Arts Forum, all in autumn 2020. Participated in shows at the Fish Slice Gallery Whitstable and at Hastings Arts Forum in 2022. Held own show with Margaret Roberts at Hastings Art Forum 2022. Participated in group show at Citylit London in 2023


Robin Thompson CBE lives in Sissinghurst in Kent, where he has a studio.