Ro Robertson was born in Sunderland in 1984 and is currently based in West Cornwall.
Robertson’s practice spans sculpture, photography, drawing and performance to explore the boundaries of the human body and its environment. In 2019 Robertson was one of five ‘Associate Artists’ selected as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International to benefit from a grant and year-long mentoring from one of the partner institutions. Paired with The Hepworth Wakefield, their body of work created during this period titled Stone (Butch) was exhibited within the display of work by Barbara Hepworth at The Hepworth Wakefield and in a group exhibition Associated Matter at Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019.
From January to June 2020 Robertson was a studio holder at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, where they created a new body of work. Comprising a sculpture, video and a large-scale drawing, Packing looks at the terrain of the Queer body in the seascape – its caves, openings and overspills – and explores ideas of masculinity, femininity and gender expression. Robertson articulates connections between their own body and the rhythms and forms of the landscape as transcending ‘a marginalised Queer history based on colonial and western homophobic and transphobic ideas of being deemed “against nature”’.
This new body of work was acquired by The Hepworth Wakefield through the Contemporary Art Society’s Rapid Response Fund.
