A contemporary artist launched an exhibition at an Aldgate East gallery yesterday, transforming childhood trauma into harmonised displays of colour.
Robi Walters is debuting his ‘A Nation of Millions’ collection of art in Quantus Gallery and hopes to inspire the crowds to find positivity in the most negative of circumstances, shortly after World Mental Health Day last week.
Using art to process immense trauma, Robi’s story is an extremely moving example of how helpful self-expression can be in coping with difficulty.
Robi’s mother left him and his brother when they were very young, and they were then moved between foster families for much of their early life.
He said: “I like to look for the positive in a negative. So in my work, I like to take things that people discard and throw away, and I like to make that thing beautiful again so that they want it back.
“And that’s the reflective part of my life.
“My life’s been disruptive and I’ve constantly been in rooms as a young child looking up into adult’s faces, not recognising anyone.
“And that’s a trauma in itself, like constantly being in rooms where you don’t know anyone and you’re with your brother and you don’t know if it’s safe.”
When he was five, his brother passed away in a house fire that Robi was fortunately able to escape from by jumping out of one of the bedroom windows.
Robi understandably took many years to process this loss, and blamed himself for a long time for his brother’s fate.
He said: “I thought I should be punished for it. I was doing enough punishing in my own head, enough to not have anyone else to punish me more.
“I was definitely a victim to myself, but not a victim externally. So it never, ever seemed like anything was wrong on the outside, but inside it was turmoil.
“I wanted to go back to my mum, and as sad as that has always been, the positive is, is that I’m able to reach inside the very dark place and make something that I consider beautiful and harmonising.”
Robi has had a passion for art for as long as he can remember with his passion originating in drawing before he then found a love for graffiti when he was 11.
After experimenting with graffiti, he later moved towards and settled in graphic design.
For much of his early career, he designed record labels, clothes for various fashion brands, flyers for clubs and more.
After living in Canada for a while with his ex-wife, Robi then returned to England and knew that pursuing a career dedicated to art was his calling.
He got into a gallery in Cork Street in Mayfair and then won a competition run by the Daily Telegraph.
From there, everything fell into place.
Robi has recently been appointed as Aston Martin’s artist in residence, he’s worked with two Michelin starred chef Tom Kerridge to design bespoke table tops in London’s Corinthia Hotel and seen his art collected by A-list celebrities, such as Sir Paul McCartney, Usain Bolt and Thandie Newton.
For his Quantus Gallery exhibition, his artwork embodies the symbol of the lotus flower, where he has used discarded cereal boxes to cut petals and hand painted each one before then constructing a 1000-petal lotus.
Within this sacred geometry, Robi feels the energy of his work giving him a stabilising grounding in reality.
The lotus represents rebirth, as a lotus flower is able to grow in the murkiest of waters.
It embodies the concept that even in the darkest of times, something beautiful can always be found to cherish.
To Robi, this energy is extremely important. He meditates every day and has done so for 24 years. He has cold showers every day, listens to motivational tracks and practices yoga.
With the motivational tracks he listens to, an overarching theme is always about giving beyond expectations, and he believes that if you give more than you’ve been asked to, something special will always come out of it.
As a result, his work as an artist is centred around giving back to people.
Materialistic motives have never been of interest to Robi as instead he hopes that his work will offer others the same harmony and peace that he himself cherishes in his work.
He hopes the exhibition will be an inspiration to people to find the strength and courage to go after their own aspirations in life.
He also aspires to work with disadvantaged schools as well to help show children the power of using art as an outlet for expression.
For him, he ultimately hopes that one day he will be able to design and build his own house for his family, where every room will be a semblance of his own creative insight so that every wall in every room has that sacred feeling of safety.
Feature Image copyright to Quantus Gallery
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