The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in Cleveland and Stephen Romano Gallery in Brooklyn are thrilled to present the first exhibition of British artist RAY ROBINSON's series "THE THIRD DOOR"
“Did the work (The Third Door) affect me? If you mean adversely, then no, they ascended the grim subject matter to become as I needed them to.. I have walked a long road, with many road side attractions. There is a dark side but beauty is ever to be sought for” — Ray Robinson, artist.
“Rumor has it Ray’s grandmother was a witch, perhaps there’s some form of muscle memory in him that lets him channel the fear, power. energy that grandma must have oozed.
These paintings have clear cut marks of witch energy deep in his DNA, creating a ladder that through his paintings we can ascend and descend like a ladder bringing back visions of power.” -Steven Intermill, Director, Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in Cleveland Ohio.
“My first encounter with Ray Robinson was in the fall of 1981 as a 19 year old, in Sarnia Ontario. He visited the community college where I was studying art, as he was set to take over the department’s program in a few weeks.. My good friend the late Canadian painter John Haxton and I spotted him by himself, peering over a balcony overlooking the college’s dining room. Oddly, he seemed to be engrossed in something. We were very curious about the man who was going to shepherd our direction, however, we thought we’d give him a taste of our irreverence (speaking for myself, of course) so we approached him. As we did, I swear I saw him look up at us, and make an arc of light with his finger around his head. The world stopped.
I had never seen anything like this before. I was simultaneously humbled and baffled, not sure if what I had just seen was real or not. He, still from a distance, seemed amused as though he had both sent out a friendly greeting, and was also having a cosmic giggle on us. Yet, I had damn well better show due respect, was the message. ” — Stephen Romano, exhibition curator and apprentice to the artist for 40 years.
In this exhibition of paintings produced between 2015 and 2016, the artist confronts his native England's often difficult - and contentious history with witchcraft. Curated by the artist’s apprentice Stephen Romano, this is the first exhibition devoted to the entire series. A catalog with contributions from art critic Alfred Rosenbluth, artist Charlotte Rodgers and Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick director Steven Intermill will accompany the exhibition.
Ray Robinson was born in the UK in 1931 and began his professional career as a mathematician. Seeking a significant change of course in his life in his late 20's, Ray discovered the works of David Bomberg, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Cezanne. He was heavily impacted by their attempts to create a visually ordered perceptual space within their works, as well as seeking to create a visual immediacy through truth to materials.
This set Ray off on a path of working directly from the model, which he continues to do to this day, living in seclusion with his wife Brenda in Nova Scotia, delving into dark corners such as witch burnings and hangings, demonic apparitions, paranormal visions, occult rituals, and the old religion. Ray Robinson's affinity to these subjects germinates from him spending his summers as a young boy with his grandmother, who apprenticed him in the old ways of the witch.
In the early 1960's, Ray was accepted as a student at the esteemed SLADE School of Fine Art in London where he befriended and exhibited alongside many of the major British artists of the 1960's such as David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Henry Moore, and others.
Upon graduating, he was given a post at the equally prestigious Bath Academy in the UK, however due to his controversial teaching methods being challenged, and a subsequent rebellion by his faithful students at, Ray decided to make a move across the Atlantic. He began teaching art in London Ontario, and later at a community college in Sarnia, Ontario, a small city which borders the US just north of Detroit. This is where the exhibition curator first met the artist when he was 19 years old and continues to hold a lifelong apprenticeship on Art, Life and Magic with him.
Ray Robinson has said of his series of paintings “The Third Door":
“Witches? Poor Devils
Each of the paintings has a true circumstance…and the result of my ‘being there’ and so pass through the matrix of memory and through the archetype that defined the first vision and set our Parameters.. To an inner meaning without external references.
‘When reason sleeps in the minds of the wise Witches burn and demons rise”
The exhibition will open November 17th 2021 and continue through January 15 2022.
All images used with permission from the artist.