The name Rob Rek is inextricably bound to artistic excellence.
A professional painter and educator for University of Southern Queensland since 2005,
Raised in a unique a microcosm of bygone traditions, happenstance saw him
grow up in the rich red soils of subtropical Queensland.
Nourished with values and customs of the rural Italian village his family called home for generations.
European customs were infused onto his makeup, the artist grew up speaking a hybrid of Australian english - and the eccentric dialect of his ancestors.
Artistic success was guided by consistent commercial interest in his delicate original artworks. His work popularized via The advent of online art galleries, and thence fueled a prolific decade of exquisite paintings -
A gluttony of awards and accolades followed behind his native wildlife paintings, his native cockatoos claiming may victories.
The delicate structures of these diverse animals would inform an ultimate destination.
“Recognition as one of the few - truly - photorealist painters. “
Known in artists circles as a continuously evolving creator, his scope grew ever wider. New concepts and genres greedily consumed, spanning portraiture, abstractions, narration,
photographic, sculpture and assemblage, all would be recognized in equal scale to his original wildlife paintings.
Recent examples by the artist draw on a deeply personal introspective evolution.
At times a destruction journey, ultimately one which broke the axis of an entire value system.
The artist’s near total shift in core beliefs- is expressed via his process of what he
coins - “painted journaling”
Rendered to the signature flawless end product, familiar subjects are offered, framed in unfamiliar scenarios.
Homages paid to his past, are imbued with symbolic significance.
Contradictory fusion abounds - perfection
of nature smashes into manufactured desire.
They form ripples of riddles, interlaced within wider riddles spreading out in ever increasing waves.
Age old philosophies wax lyrical, fierce debate -
or - even all out war-fare, is not uncommon.
Like the Hindu god shiva, or the ancient grass trees of Australia’s outback, almost complete destruction is the catalyst which triggers something new to grow.
Decades of repression smothered beneath a sodden carpet of denial begins to shake
the ground. Pressure to break free reaches a volatile inflection point - it spits the same fire as the ever restless Isola Stromboli.
Finally the cauldron splits wide open, and spews out a rage of consciousness.
He gapes and swallows a life giving breath… but this oxygen is altogether a foreign
substance.
Unlike the toxic, smog like thing of the past which took life as much as it gave,
This air is clear, pure - as the ragged breath of panic subsides, clarity filters through all senses.
The future for Rob Rek can be surmised by the same utterance used by Egyptologist - Howard Carter.
As he peered through the tiny opening,his eyes adjusting to the gloom within - he caught the first glint of Tutankhamen’s lost treasures,
Beside him, a weary Lord Carnavon stammered - “what can you see?”
The intrepid Carter found only two words -
“Wonderful Things”