Robyn Denny Mosaics - at Vardaxoglou Gallery

In 1955, while studying at the Royal College of Art in London, Robyn Denny initiated a series of mosaics following technical instruction in the medium. So profound was his engagement with the process that he authored a technical article on it during his final year. This formative body of work culminated in his inaugural solo exhibition at Gallery One, London, in January 1958. 

This recognition led to a significant commission: a mosaic mural for the London County Council's primary school in Abbey Wood, allowing Denny to expand the scale and ambition of his practice. For the artist, the mosaic, akin to collage, served as a methodological vehicle for the meticulous, piece-by-piece construction of a structured composition.

Denny himself characterized these works as simply “Landscapes, really.” The mosaic tesserae, both protruding from and submerged beneath layers of grit and apparent rubble, effectively conjure the topography of a post-war London. This unearthed and fragmented urban landscape, in a perpetual state of reconstruction, was a potent subject that impressed itself upon the British artistic consciousness of the era. Yet, despite the material density and tectonic weight of these works, Denny achieves a paradoxical sense of quietude and stillness, a calmness emerging from a slowly tumbling surface not unlike that encountered in ancient Greek ruins.

Departing from the traditional mosaic’s defining characteristic, a uniform, planar surface, Denny instead built up his picture plane, devising a sculptural assemblage. The process of addition and excavation became central, revealing a methodology where the artist discovers, and loses, the embedded structure through its own making. This technique yields a palpable tension that oscillates between stability and collapse. Stratified layers are constructed only to be partially removed, revealing a spectral face or a geological landscape. 

Working with plaster, concrete, and resin, Denny rigorously disrupted the inherent repetition of the mosaic unit to achieve an organic, undulating, and densely material surface. In a manner evocative of late Cubism, he renders his subject, its architectural armature, and the interstitial space as a singular, concrete matter.

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