Aurora Robson

Aurora Robson is a Canadian-American artist who works in sculpture, installation, painting and collage focusing on themes related to the environment.[1][2]

Early life and education

Born in Canada in 1972,[3] Robson grew up in Hawaii and now resides in New York.[1][4] Robson attended Columbia University where she graduated with a B.A. in visual arts and art history.[5]

Work

Robson's primary focus is creating works made with plastic collected by intercepting the waste stream,[6][7] repurposing plastic into art before it is sent to recycling. While her initial work was with common household plastics like water bottles and caps, she is currently focused on large scale sculptures made with industrial plastic. She also paints and creates 3-dimensional collages made with junk mail and excess packaging.[8]

In 2008, Robson founded Project Vortex, a not-for-profit organization consisting of artists, designers and architects from around the world that also work with plastic. The organization strives to bring awareness to plastic pollution and encourage cleanups of waterways.[9] In 2013, she gave a Ted talk at TedxPeachtree entitled "Trash+Love" [10] introducing "Sculpture+Intercepting the Waste Stream,"[11] an open source course she designed to foster creative stewardship at academic institutions. The course was first taught by Robson at Mary Baldwin University in 2012.[12] Her goal for the course is to inspire others to look at junk differently and rather than discard it, to create art.[13]

Robson is the recipient of numerous grants including the Pollock Krasner Grant[14] from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture, a TED/Lincoln Re-Imagine Prize[13] and a National Endowment for the Arts Art Work Grant.

Robson's work and philosophies have been included in WIRED UK,[15] Art & Antiques,[16] Scholastic Issues,[17] BBC News The Forum,[18] National Geographic ASPIRE Textbook, Houston Chronicle[19] and other publications, programs and textbooks.[20][21][22][23][24]

Some of her exhibitions include: "Plastic Fantastic" at Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu HI,[25] "Sacrifice + Bliss" at Franklin Park Conservatory & Botanical Gardens [26] in Columbus OH; "Stayin’ Alive" at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC;[27] "Everything, All At Once, Forever" at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport IA [28] and "The Great Indoors" at the Rice Gallery in Houston TX.[29] In 2018, she opened "Gravity Schmavity" at Penn State Arboretum, PA[30]

The sculpture "Dyno" is permanently installed at The Kingsbrae Garden in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. It was made with broken plastic fish boxes.[31] Her sculpture "Lift" is installed permanently in the Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center at Rice University. "Lift" has solar powered motors that help it rotate and is made with 10,000 discarded plastic bottles and 3,000 bottle caps.[9]

References
  1. "Q & A with Artist Aurora Robson | artnet News". artnet News. 2013-08-07. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  2. "Artist Aurora Robson Transforms Discarded Plastic into Beautiful Pieces of Art". Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  3. "Aurora Robson - Project Kaisei". Project Kaisei. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  4. "Upstart Co-Lab". Upstart Co-Lab. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  5. "Intercepting the Waste Stream by Aurora Robson". Beautiful People Live Art. 2016-02-17. Archived from the original on 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  6. "Plastic waste upcycled into art by Aurora Robson". www.upcycledzine.com. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  7. Dispatch, Nancy Gilson, For The Columbus. "Artist turns ubiquitous plastic water bottles into sculpture". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  8. "Aurora Robson on appropriating nightmares | Honolulu Museum of Art Blog". blog.honoluluacademy.org. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  9. "Aurora Robson : Rice Public Art". publicart.rice.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  10. TEDx Talks (2013-11-19), Trash + love: Aurora Robson at TEDxPeachtree, retrieved 2017-03-06
  11. "Sculpture + Intercepting the Waste Stream". Project Vortex. Archived from the original on 2017-03-02. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  12. "Doenges Scholar Combines Art and Advocacy - News at Mary Baldwin". www.marybaldwin.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  13. "Lincoln Now | Recycling Plastic into Art with Aurora Robson | Lincoln.com". now.lincoln.com. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  14. "Aurora Robson | Works | Pollock Krasner Image Collection". www.pkf-imagecollection.org. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  15. Allan, Jennifer. "This artist's artworks illustrate the dark side of plastic waste". WIRED UK. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  16. Gomez, Edward. "Drawn Together", Art & Antiques, 2010.
  17. "Scholastic Issues 21". Aurora Robson. Archived from the original on 2017-03-07. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  18. BBC News. "The Forum: Plasticity", TBBC News, London, 27 May 2015.
  19. "Robson displays her 'body' of work". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  20. McLendon, Matthew (2015-01-01). Re:Purposed. Scala. ISBN 9781857599374.
  21. Robson, Aurora (2009-01-01). The Great Indoors. Rice University Art Gallery. ISBN 9781932281330.
  22. Chambers, Catherine (2015-01-01). How Effective Is Recycling?. Capstone Classroom. ISBN 9781484610015.
  23. Woolf, Alex (2015-08-01). The Impact of Technology in Art. Capstone Classroom. ISBN 9781484626405.
  24. Art Nexus. Arte en Colombia. 2004-01-01.
  25. "Honolulu Museum of Art Plastic Fantastic?". honolulumuseum.org. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  26. "Franklin Park Conservatory - History". www.fpconservatory.org. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  27. "Aurora Robson | Artists In Residence | McColl Center for Art + Innovation". mccollcenter.org. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  28. "Environmentally Conscious Artist Creates Dynamic Sculptures from Debris". Figge Art Museum. July 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-01-21. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  29. "Aurora Robson | The Great Indoors". Rice Gallery. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  30. "NEA grant will support creation of sculptures at The Arboretum at Penn State | Penn State University". Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  31. "Art at Kingsbrae – Kingsbrae Garden". Retrieved 2019-03-30.
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