One of six artist in our current exhibition All light, all air, all space, Robbins' work with weather-powered drawing machines (including wind and solar) is innovative and unique, making ephemeral and unseen forces visible.

Watch Cameron and Yvette's  Q & A below.

Solar drawing instrumental  2021
DC motor, Unisolar 24V panel (outdoors), cedar, stainless steel, aluminium, brass, copper, polyethylene, high tensile steel,carbon fibre, cable, pulleys, CVT gearbox, bearings, shafts, graphite, paint

 ‘This piece is astronomical, inspired by the lunar eclipse of May 26 2021. The silver cratered wheel is the Moon. Painted on the wall is the Penumbral and Umbral shadow of the earth, to scale at 4.8 times the moon’s diameter. During the eclipse we are reminded that the Earth always casts its shadow into space while the moon passes through it on its monthly journey. Projected onto the moon’s surface is the red ring of all Earth’s sunset and sunrises at once. The Sun, providing light for the eclipse also powers this Solar Drawing Instrument with visible and infra-red light. The drawing can be described as phase-space diagrams; stochastic bundles; physics of objects in motion; sunlight and shadow; landscape and its influence.

Each line is made as sunlight filters through cloud, atmosphere and trees, to motivate a solar-motor driven pen. Each day, drawings accumulate from thousands of consecutive lines. Without any battery storage, if the sun stops shining, the line stops. Cloudy moments, shade, and nights the pen lies still. Gaps left between each bundle of lines, revealing the wall…a drawing of solar energy, time, trees’ dappled light and cloud shadow. For this drawing, the radius of the drawing stroke is increased by 25mm every few days until it reaches its maximum, and there it stays.’ - Cameron Robbins, 2022