Curios About: Boupie by Robbie Wells

Boupie
By Robbie Wells
Paper, pencil, collage, candle wax and digital colouring
300mm x 210mm

1. This work is about … me – in an idea of reinvented portraiture – and also about a visit to the city of Brussels; it sort of mixes up my feelings about myself with some notion of the place and some of the types of people that I saw and met there. It is also about the difference between how some creative people live in Brussels and our expectations of life in Dublin. The image was drawn without overthinking, by trying to let feelings and experiences “conjure” the image.

2. I made this work because … I am an artist and this is how I communicate. I want to try and make images that may resonate with myself and others. I would like to bring representative art and portraiture back into a place where it is meaningful for me, where it may help me find my “voice” and enable me to represent all the things I see and feel in a way that is new to me.

3. I hope when people see this work they will … be interested in what it is, wonder what it is about, be interested in poor Boupie’s life, and really enjoy it if it has any meaning for them.

4. In terms of art history, this work … after abstraction and then ideas/conceptual/self-critical/cynical art in the 20th and 21st centuries, it sits as a reconnection with art from before these things, but in a new way. It is no surprise that Picasso abandoned cubism to pursue what he felt in his guts and not in his head, so, I would like to bring feelings, senses, the body and the soul back into my work

5. You can see my work … at my website muddypath.me.

“Curios About …” is a series featuring works by Dublin artists. Each artist is asked to submit an image of one work and answer a set of questions about it. We’d love it if you’d submit something you’ve made, here.