Year of the pigment

‘When it was coming up to the millennium year I saw people on TV thinking of different ideas to mark this time,’ said the artist and Les Beaucamps High School head of art. ‘I thought, “I don’t want to do something naff and if it’s not meaningful, I don’t want to do it”. So I decided that a painting a day for a year to record the year was achievable. I wanted to get out, paint on the spot. The summer was fine, but mid-winter I’d come home after work and it would be dark and raining. One time I was sat in the Guet with a blue nylon rope swinging in a tree. That was bleak. Another time, the rain washed all the paint off my page.’

But he completed the project and A Record In Time was exhibited at the Millennium Arts Centre, which was at the old Girls’ Grammar School.

‘There was a room for every month. I then showed them at the Eisteddfod and at the St Pierre Park Hotel. It was a big achievement.’

Fast forward to 2009 and Rob was staying on Lihou Island with friends.

‘I thought, “Should I or shouldn’t I?”. I decided I would, but this time I was going to use photographs. I then posted the paintings on a website and they went down really well. Some people noticed things that they hadn’t seen before.’

Come 2019 and Rob was ready to give it another crack.

‘I thought that if I do it again, I really want to make it a work of quality, craftsmanship. No sloppy days.’

When Rob started the project, obviously, like everybody else, he had no idea of the year ahead.

‘There was no awareness at the start of the year – January, February, March – a sense of not knowing what was to come.’

But Rob pressed on, documenting this unprecedented time, and Guernsey’s reaction to it.

‘My mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away on 12 December, so there are elements of that in the work. I just kept going. I decided not to go to bed until that painting was finished.’

Finding inspiration or scenes for his paintings was never planned or followed a set course.

‘It was a case of exploring and seeing what I could find. The painting of the telephone engineer, that happened right outside my classroom window at Les Beaucamps. All the kids were waving at him and he waved back. So I took a photo and thought, “That has to be today’s painting”.

‘When it comes to bays and beaches, all you need is the light. Then there are the quirky bits, the metaphors and signs. I was always on the lookout for today’s painting. I got better at looking at a big scene and then picking a small bit out.’

Rob posted each of his paintings on Instagram and Facebook and many were snapped up.

‘If someone wanted to buy one I wanted to make it affordable, so they went for £30 each.’

Rob was invited to exhibit his project by Russ Fossey and Monika Drabot of the Guernsey Arts Commission.

‘I was collecting my work from a previous exhibition at the George Crossan Gallery [the GAC’s Guernsey Open Arts Exhibition, which ran from September to November] and they suggested the idea then. I was genuinely touched to be asked.

‘They said pick 60 paintings which I could write something about and, as I had photographed all the paintings, Monika has made a 12-month calendar out of them.

‘Monika has been incredible at getting all the work together.’

As well as the exhibition, 366 is also being made into a documentary.

‘Sophie Gallienne, who is a former student of mine from Les Beaucamps, is now in her third and final year doing media production. She asked if she could produce a 10- or 15-minute film about me and my project.

‘This has a nice symmetry, really, because when I first came to Guernsey I used to get my work framed at Framecraft by Ron Gallienne. Years later I found out that Ron was Sophie’s granddad.’

Rob said that it’s more than likely that he will do another painting-a-day project in 2030, but in the meantime, for 2021 at least, he has set himself a new task.

‘It’s one painting a week, rather than one a day. And I will post it on a Sunday. I’ve called it Sunday Surprise. I might take the opportunity to paint more quirky ones.’