Jimmy Robert

Black cursive text on a gallery wall that begins 'The tropical flower, invading space. A shapeshifting design'. A canvas of tartan fabric hung on the gallery wall.

black cursive text on a gallery wall that fades to a light grey reads 'No smoke without you, my fire...', 'Transatlantic trade as a circulation of form: traces of bodies, Bouganvilleas, textiles, tobacco. 'The Sea is history' wrote Derek Walcott. But the waters are too deep and smoke gets in my eyes.'

3 artworks on the walls of a gallery, 2 framed, 1 unframed.

a large photographic print of a person in a dynamic pose. Black cursive text on an wall. A TV screen propped on the gallery floor.

a large botanical print hangs from a gallery ceiling, down the gallery wall and onto the floor in a roll.

an A4 print on a gallery wall. Black smudges on the print splay out onto the gallery wall

The Hunterian

Tobacco Flower was a major body of new work by Jimmy Robert, made especially for Glasgow International. The project extended the formal and thematic concerns of his recent work in performance, focusing in particular on relationships between Europe and the Caribbean.

Taking tobacco flower textile designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh as a key point of departure, Robert explored multiple traces left by Glasgow’s role within colonialism. Robert handles such contested material through subtle means and with careful attention to difference and specificity. The work is as concerned with intimate experience as it is with political contexts. Working across several mediums, including film, photography and sound, Robert engages directly with The Hunterian and its historical collections in order to examine the cultural framing of identities and desires.

Supported by Glasgow International