Rob Coates

Single Lens Reflex
2024
long exposure photograph. Cork, wall paper off cut, engraved with soldering iron

2@ 58x59cm
P.O.A

Tasting Notes;

My grandfather is buried on the cliffs behind Bronte.
When it came time to bury him, I helped lower the box into the ground.
He grew up in the depression, we bonded over my position on the environment and waste, planned obsolescence and being resourceful.
A primary ingredient in this artwork is an off cut of cork wall paper, engraved with a soldering iron.
Cork is a genuinely remarkable product both for its properties and its renewable sustainability.
If I stand on his grave and look down the valley to the ocean I can almost see where this photograph was taken, only I was lower down, I climbed down the cliffside in the dark.
The lights in the photo are the headland of North Bondi.

I first got into photography through my grandfathers old SLR, I would go out at night and take long exposure shots wandering the urban and industrial landscape unfazed by daytime laws.
With luck one or two of the shots turned out… capturing all the light that occurred within seconds of darkness and compressing them to a snapshot in time, an almost alien reflection of our reality where night appears as day an illuminating and serene brilliance from within the darkness.
The true view is burnt into the landscape of the cork, on the right, the feedback loop of the lens creates a mirror image, we see the lie first and the truth is obscured… we are conditioned from left to right.




CRYPTO FOMO
(legal tender issues)
2023

wood carving, mixed media paint, spray paint, oil paint, white out correction pen, acrylic and resin.
mirror glass, mechanical reproduction paper print, set to plywood with hardwood veneer
121x 2440cm

P.O.A (price on application)

Tasting Notes;
It began with a bathroom renovation.

The mirror was to be smashed for landfill, which seemed like bad luck.
Instead I painted it: art is often, a reflective experience.
Beside the painted mirror is its mirror image, a reproduction enabled by
technology, printed, on paper then touched up with ‘white out correction pen’.
The elements are set beside one another, in resin on board, painted with symbols
and figures and dots all repeated within a reference of pattern.
Pineapples were once as valuable as bitcoin is today.
Pineapple is slang for a $50 note, which was a large part of the inspiration for the
colour and composition of this work.
Currency has evolved with the ever increasing complexity and speed of
reproduction: barter and exchange, gold bullion, promissory notes, fiat systems,
blockchains and NFTs: the value these things hold is not inherent, it’s the value
we tacitly agree to accord them.
Give a man a fish, or teach the man to fish… seem somewhat binary and
questionable options in the current state of play.
If we don’t first acknowledge the truth of how we came to be where we are,
where we have come from will continue to dictate where we are heading.
I Fear Of Missing Out.
this fomo is cryptic

Portrait of Self in Landscape
(diptych)
2022
house paint, spray paint, acrylic marker and resin on canvas.
mechanical reproduction on canvas with oil paint.
76x 100cm

P.O.A

Tasting Notes

The left over paint had tint

it wouldn’t be good for anything other than the entrance door
destined to stay in the pot and disappear into the back of a shed, harden and spoil in a rusting tin under a house forgotten
illegally trashed as general household waste
least of all its chances, paid for a second time to be disposed in the allocated area for toxic poisonous waste.
I poured what was left in the tin on the canvas, I am connected to this landscape, it is inescapable, compartmentalisation is an academic myth, scaffolding for cognitive dissonance and civilised fraud.
The paint runs, spray paint skins off atop the tectonic viscous mass of slow moving door paint
I am in the landscape, it creates mountains, valleys, plains, eruptions and colour.
a topographic minaret, revealing landscapes creation
I see myself reflected back in and atop myself, a replication, like forms below the waves in the sand, forming the same shapes as clouds far overhead. 

Ghost Dance, Reflections on Loss
(diptych)
2022
Mechanical mirror reproduction, Giclee Print on Paper.
mixed media paint, industrial metal paint, spray paint, house paint, acrylic, resin and oil paint on concrete form plywood
60x 120cm

Private Collection

Tasting Notes

Ghost Dance refers to a revitalisation movement in which Native Americans called forth on the power of their dead to repel the flow of colonial dominance.

The birds depicted are two Albatrosses, dancing.

This is made up of two halves, the left is a reflection, a mirror image that is a reproduction, a mechanical print on paper without any life.

the right is a painting on old concrete form board, that contains waste paint, spray paint, set alight then stabilised with a layer of resin the two albatross sit atop it in a mating dance, transforming it into a landscape of potential.

I’m not without hope for the environment, but I do have concerns, fears, about the legacy of imperialism, colonialism and exploitative practices, that hang like an albatross around our collective neck.

Self Portrait of Artist with Ego
(diptych)

2022

120x 240cm

P.O.A

Tasting Notes;
Albert Einstein, allegedly once wrote, or said, "Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe though"
This work was created during lockdown, in isolation. it is a portrait of the infinite thing that is not the universe.


Nonchalant Reflection
2022

mixed media; woodstain, smoke stain, spraypaint, metallic tint, oil paint, smoke stain and resin on plywood with mirror image print on paper.
120x 160cm

P.O.A

Pressing Reflections
2022

mixed media; woodstain, smoke stain, spraypaint, metallic tint, oil paint, smoke stain and resin on plywood with mirror image print on paper. 
120x 160cm


P.O.A

geometric reflection
2022
mixed media, resin on board with mirror print
120x120cm
P.O.A

ADAD
(All Donalds Are Dicks)
2024

2024

Using Format